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	Vatican Inspectors to Hit U.S. Seminaries By Marie Szaniszlo Boston Herald [United States] September 1, 2005 The Vatican is set to inspect U.S. Catholic seminaries and theology schools for the first time in two decades, addressing issues key to the clergy sexual abuse scandal. Between late September and next June, teams of three to four people from the Holy See will visit up to 229 institutions, examining how schools screen applicants and what they teach students about issues such as sexuality and obedience. The schools include St. John's Seminary in Brighton, the alma mater of nearly every pedophile priest in the Archdiocese of Boston. "They will be looking at the whole issue of preparation to live a celibate life," said Monsignor Francis J. Maniscalco, spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Vatican formally announced the "apostolic visitations" in April 2002, after the scandal broke in Boston and spread nationwide. But many victims' advocates and experts on pedophilia in the priesthood are skeptical about the inspections, noting for example that some church officials have blamed the scandal on gays in the priesthood, even though an untold number of victims are female. "It's hard to be optimistic when church officials so consistently oversimplify and misdiagnose the problem," said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. Any substantive change must begin with the hierarchy, which has responded to the crisis with "extreme defensiveness" and a "fear of looking honestly at the whole notion of celibacy because it supports this mystique that clerics are better than others," said the Rev. Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer who co-authored a report 20 years ago warning U.S. bishops about the looming abuse crisis, only to be rebuffed by the church.