Buffalo statements assert more transparency, urge privacy for victims

BUFFALO (NY)
Catholic News Service

April 12, 2019

In a pair of statements issued April 11, the Diocese of Buffalo both asserted greater
transparency in its handling of clergy sex abuse claims and urged respect for the privacy of abuse victims.

The former statement, from Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo, was issued to “correct some of those errors” about the diocese’s response to the crisis that had cropped up from the “intense media coverage.”

But he also used the statement to address “the times when I personally have fallen short. I deeply regret and apologize for having signed those letters in support of Father Art Smith,” a diocesan priest whom Bishop Malone had endorsed for a job as a cruise ship chaplain despite complaints by three young men to the diocese in 2011 and 2013 about inappropriate touching and unwanted attention and Facebook messages from the priest.

“I also regret not being more transparent about claims involving abuse against adults,” Bishop Malone added. “As you know from the manner in which we have been addressing more recent claims involving conduct between adults, we are handling those matters differently now. Lessons have been learned.”

Bishop Malone said of the 191 abuse complaints received in “the last audit year” — each U.S. diocese undergoes an annual audit to monitor its compliance with the U.S. bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” — “not a single one of those new allegations involved an incident that occurred after 2000,” and that “there have been no substantiated allegations of child sexual abuse against any diocesan priest ordained in the past 30 years.”

The charter has worked, he added, “demonstrated by the fact that there have been very few actual cases of child sexual abuse in our diocese since 2002.”

Moreover, the independent review board process outlined in the charter works, Bishop Malone said. “When adequate information has been obtained, the board will make a recommendation to me about whether or not the claim has been substantiated. No priest with a substantiated claim of child sexual abuse can remain in ministry,” he added.

“My decisions about whether a priest is removed from or returned to ministry are often criticized in the media. Of course, the process needs to be confidential to protect the privacy of all the parties involved, and, as a result, the public may not hear all that went into each decision.”

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