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  Catholic Diocese Audit

By Leeah Brennan
KAPP [Yakima WA]
Downloaded October 14, 2003

A team of auditors has spent the day picking through the Yakima Diocese. The United States Conference of Cahtolic Bishops commissioned a Boston based group to audit each of its 195 Diocese. Its the Church's new safeguard aginst sexual abuse. Auditors won't look at how this Diocese or any Diocese deals with cases of sexual abuse before 2002. They will make sure the Diocese has systems in place to prevent abuse and follow new no tolerance guidelines.

Micheal Ross, the only person to file an abuse lawsuit against the Yakima Diocese, says without including past abuse, any assessment of how the Diocese is doing isn't complete.

Ross said, "They're not doing anything to help victims that I can see. I'm a victim of priest abuse in Yakima. They're not helping me at all, they're hurting me. They don't answer my questions, they don't answer my therapists questions, they don't pay our bills like they said they will."

So far, Yakima's Bishop Carlos Sevilla's official statement to Ross's allegations or any sexual abuse related question is no comment. Church leaders here won't talk about the audit until its over. Yakima's audit ends this Thursday. The auditing team plans to release a report about all the Diocese in December.

 
 

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