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  Mcchesney Leaves Bishops' Child Protection Office Citing Advances

By Agostino Bono
Catholic News Service [Washington DC]
February 28, 2005

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- With child sex abuse prevention programs in place throughout the U.S. church, the next task is to test their effectiveness, said Kathleen McChesney, who spent two years helping dioceses and Eastern-rite eparchies establish the measures.

McChesney, who resigned at the end of February as executive director of the U.S. bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection, said that child sex abuse can never be totally eliminated in the church or society, but effective, constantly updated programs can dramatically reduce the cases.

The issue before the church now is "developing mechanisms to determine the effectiveness of what has taken place and the quality of what has been put into place," she said in a Feb. 22 interview with Catholic News Service.

McChesney was hired in November 2002 as the first head of the child and youth protection office set up to help dioceses and eparchies apply prevention policies and to monitor their implementation. The office was established by the bishops in their 2002 "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People," which spelled out their child sex abuse prevention policies.

The former FBI official originally planned to stay in the job for two years but extended her term a few months to complete the 2004 audit report on how dioceses and eparchies are implementing the charter.

The report, released Feb. 18, said that 96 percent of the 195 dioceses and eparchies are in compliance with the policies in the charter. It was the second year in a row a national audit was done.

McChesney told CNS that among the major achievements so far are "public accountability" and "public accounting" by the bishops regarding sex abuse.

"That didn't exist before," she said.

As examples, she cited:

-- The annual audit process, which now includes data on new allegations and the amount of money spent yearly on sex abuse issues.

-- The massive statistical study on the nature and scope of the problem by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York covering the period 1950-2002.

-- A 145-page report on the clergy sex abuse crisis by the all-lay National Review Board appointed by the bishops.

Other major achievements she cited include:

-- Background checks for thousands of clergy and lay church employees and volunteers.

-- Sex abuse prevention courses for thousands of church workers and millions of children.

But McChesney is quick to warn that the crisis is not over.

"We're beginning to establish the mechanisms that will tell us whether the crisis is abating. It's never going to go away as long as you have victims," she said.

One issue that her office cannot deal with, she said, is disciplinary measures against bishops who in the past covered up clergy sex abuse.

Under church laws such measures could only be taken by the Vatican, she said.

"I was surprised that there wasn't much more authority here in the United States," she said.

"That makes it difficult at times, particularly when a few don't cooperate with what seems to be the will of the body," she added.

McChesney said that "many bishops wanted to do the right thing" when the crisis erupted. She added that she was treated fairly by the bishops as a laywoman hired to monitor their policies.

"Certainly not all of them agreed with everything that I did," she said.

"But as we worked through the processes -- these are very new processes for any organization -- and as we worked through them over time we gained the confidence of many that we were doing the right thing and that many of the things we were putting in place ... really do have an impact on providing information to the public that they want to know and need to know," she said.

It was important for the bishops' credibility to choose a layperson for her job as many people did not believe the bishops were capable of objectively monitoring themselves, she said.

Overall, she described the bishops' policies as solid.

"The charter actually is a pretty strong document" and there should be "as little change as possible" when the bishops review the charter at their June meeting, she said.

What is important is that the bishops "keep the promises that they made," she said.

Review of the charter should concentrate on sharpening definitions, such as who are the educators covered by the policies, she said.

"Is it just people who work in Catholic schools or does it include volunteers who teach religious education on Saturdays?" she said.

"We take a broad approach that it would be everybody, but we need to hear from the bishops on that," she added.

McChesney said that the zero-tolerance policy -- which requires removal from ministry of any priest or deacon found to have abused a minor -- should not be changed yet.

"I don't think it's the policy that is confusing people. I think it's the definition of sex abuse which is very broad," she said.

The definition should make clear it includes violations of child pornography laws, she added.

But McChesney declined to say how she would redefine sex abuse because the bishops' Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse and the National Review Board are "doing a good job" working together to find a proper definition.

A 31-year career in law enforcement was helpful in her work, McChesney said, especially in providing guidance and referrals to victims who contacted her office.

"This office has dealt with probably over 200 persons who have been abused," she said. "They might come to us because they went to a diocese or eparchy and were dissatisfied or were confused; or they were abused by a member of a religious order and they didn't know whom to go to," she said.

McChesney worked for seven years in the King County Police Department in Seattle. Then for nearly 25 years she worked with the FBI. When she left in 2002 she was the FBI's executive assistant director for law enforcement services and the organization's highest ranking woman.

 
 

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