BishopAccountability.org
	A Move Based on Faith Springfield's Kettelkamp Heads to D.C. As Director of Catholic Church's Child and Youth Protection Office By Dave Bakke SJ-R.com [United States] April 25, 2005 Three years ago, a convergence of events began that ended with Teresa Kettelkamp of Springfield becoming a central figure in the Catholic Church's enforcement of its new policy on sexual abuse of minors by priests. The trail has its beginning in June 2002, when the U.S. bishops approved the Dallas Charter. The charter was drafted in response to public outrage over priest sex abuse scandals. The bishops made it mandatory for the 178 dioceses in the country to conform to church policies designed to protect children from abuse by clergy. The charter also created the Office for Child and Youth Protection. That office assists dioceses and Eastern Rite eparchies across the country to adhere to the requirements of the charter. A year following the bishops' Dallas meeting, Kettelkamp retired from the Illinois State Police after a 29-year career. The link between the two seemingly unrelated events - Kettelkamp's retirement and the Dallas Charter - was Kathleen McChesney. McChesney is a former FBI agent who was the first executive director of the Office for Child and Youth Protection. "I had met Kathleen," says Kettelkamp, "when I headed the forensics division for the state police. She headed the Chicago FBI office, and our biggest lab was in Chicago." After McChesney was hired by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in December 2002, Kettelkamp called to ask if she needed an assistant in her new position. She did, but said it would require a move to Washington, D.C. Kettelkamp's son, Zach, was attending Sacred Heart-Griffin High School then and the time was not right for a move halfway across the country. Instead, Kettelkamp spent the past two years helping to conduct annual audits of dioceses regarding their compliance with the charter. After McChesney announced last November that she was resigning in February, she contacted Kettelkamp and encouraged her to apply for the executive director's job. Kettelkamp was hired two weeks ago. Zach is at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Daughter Katie is attending Quincy College in Quincy. Kettelkamp and her children decided the time was right for a move. However, she will keep the family's home in Springfield while living in Washington. While some Catholics, particularly groups representing clergy abuse victims, would argue the point, Kettelkamp believes the bishops are serious about following the provisions of the Dallas Charter and getting tough on sexual abuse of minors by priests. "If I thought it was going to be business as usual," Kettelkamp says, "and there was nothing more I could do to help with the issue, then I wouldn't have taken the job." Kettelkamp's parents were devout Catholics and instilled in her a love of the church. That, and her extensive law enforcement background, will be useful as she becomes executive director of the Office for Child and Youth Protection. She grew up in the Chicago area, graduating from Elk Grove Village High School. In 1974 she graduated from Quincy College, a school operated by the Franciscan religious order. Two years later she moved to Springfield. Her assignments for the state police included investigating white-collar crime and public corruption cases. Kettelkamp was head of the division of forensic services as well as the division of internal investigation and supervised 28 I-Search agents who conducted investigations involving missing and sexually abused children. She was the first woman to attain the rank of colonel in the state police. The National Center for Women in Policing gave her the Breaking the Glass Ceiling Award. She received the State Police's Achievement Medal four times, received the Meritorious Service Award in 1995 and the YWCA Women of Excellence Award in 2001. "I have the highest regard and respect for her," says Tom Yokley of Williamsville, who served in the state police with Kettelkamp and succeeded her in internal investigations. "She's a very honest person. She should serve the church well." Kettelkamp says her faith led her to contact McChesney and eventually conduct audits of various dioceses. She says she purposely did not audit the Springfield diocese to avoid any conflict of interest. She is a lector and Eucharistic minister in her parish, Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Three days after her retirement from the state, she joined the Gavin Group, which was overseeing the diocesan audits. Auditors visit dioceses to see how well they are following the provisions of the Dallas Charter. "Audits involve a lot of pre-work before you going on-site," says Kettelkamp. "You work with the diocese, help them through different issues, answer questions. That first year, we were all feeling our way." The first years of the charter's existence, Kettelkamp says, have been spent fine-tuning and changing policies in dioceses to help them meet requirements. The Dallas Charter is up for review by the church this year. According to an Associated Press story from the Vatican, the new pope, Benedict XVI, already has indicated to Chicago's Cardinal Francis George that he would preserve the charter. Separately, American bishops will consider whether to suggest any revisions to the policy at their June meeting. Since being hired, Kettelkamp has met with Springfield's Bishop George Lucas and the diocesan victim assistance coordinator, Patricia Kornfeld, to solicit their views about how the charter's provisions are working at the local level. In Washington, she will have a mostly administrative role. She will not normally be talking to victims of abuse on a day-to-day basis, but is open to doing so if the occasion presents itself. "I see my job more as facilitating," says Kettelkamp. "As far as victim groups, I'd be happy to meet with them. But the main work and implementation of the charter is at the local level. "As an auditor we did interview victims. One of the things we interviewed them for was wanting to know how you were treated by the church, were you treated with respect, do you feel like you know what's going on, was the church responsive, did they look into your allegation, did they offer you counseling, did they offer to let you meet with the bishop? We interviewed one victim who just sat there and cried. You just hope you don't break down with them." Kettelkamp will be working under the church's National Review Board. In its early days, members of that board, most notably former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, were at odds with the American bishops over implementation of the Dallas Charter. The board is about to appoint a new chairman. Kettelkamp's office will also produce an annual public report on the progress made in implementing the standards of the charter. And this weekend she is talking again to McChesney and deputy executive director Sheila Kelly. "I want to see if they have any priorities for me," says Kettelkamp. "I want to hear what needs my special attention right away." An important part of the Dallas Charter is making the dioceses as open as they can be in answering questions and keeping the people of the diocese informed while at the same time respecting the confidentiality of the victims and the accused. "One of the things the church is trying hard to do is restore credibility and trust," says Kettelkamp. "One of the charter articles has to do with communications policy, openness and transparency. If you don't let people in, then they can't help encourage trust and restore credibility. "One of my challenges is to help the dioceses try to reach out. From what I've seen they try very hard, but there are challenges."