BishopAccountability.org
	Church Loses Volunteers to Policy Aimed at Protecting Kids By Jeff Diamant Star-Ledger [New Jersey] October 27, 2005 Charlie Hughes is a volunteer's volunteer, collecting old cell phones for battered women, running clothing drives and gathering old bicycles for reuse around the world. For more than two decades, the 74-year-old West Amwell man gave his time to St. John's Roman Catholic Church in Lambertville, most recently for the parish's Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which helps the poor. But a dispute over a church program designed to prevent abuse of children has angered Hughes and dozens of other volunteers, largely depleting the society's membership. At least 40 volunteers, lectors and eucharistic ministers have been dismissed or eliminated from rosters since last year because of their refusal to fully participate in the "Protecting God's Children" program, said Marlene Di Via, the society's former secretary and one of those dismissed. The dispute stems from Monsignor Leon Kasprzyk's interpretation of a Metuchen diocese policy, borne from the clergy sex abuse scandal, that church workers with "direct contact with minors" take part in the program. Kasprzyk decided the policy applied to all Vincent de Paul members even though most volunteers, like Hughes, said they do not work with children. The program requires each person to be fingerprinted, undergo a criminal background check, attend a workshop on preventing sex abuse and sign a document releasing the diocese -- and anyone it contacts about the volunteer's background -- from liability. It is the waiver that has been most controversial at St. John's, where many volunteers worry that signing it could work against them if someone files a false claim. While the majority of people asked to sign the waiver have done so, most society members felt they should not have to since they don't work with children and that the waiver has less to do with protecting children than with protecting the diocese, several members said in interviews. "When they asked us to sign the document, I wouldn't sign it," said Hughes, who now volunteers at a hospice. "I said, 'I don't deal with children. Everything I do is out in the open.' I'd be exposing myself to someone saying something happened, and I'd have no defense. I could get charged in a civil trial." For scores of once-active members, not being able to volunteer at St. John's has been upsetting. Their anger illustrates the flip side of the much-heralded abuse prevention program, which has received positive reviews. "I'm sorry that these people have quit," said Kasprzyk, 70, pastor at the 1,700-family church for 10 years. "My hope was that they would all go through the process and we would continue as we did before." Kasprzyk said a small group persuaded other society members not to sign the waiver, and he maintained almost all church volunteers have some contact with children necessitating inclusion in the program. The society members, he said, "are in the presence of children in the course of their ministry whether they're gathering things like bicycles or selling coffee. Anything they do in the back of the church, or to a home visitation, or collecting furniture ... they're often in contact with children." He included lectors and eucharistic ministers in the program, he said, because they gather before Mass in the back of the church with altar servers. Around the country, hundreds of thousands of church workers in 86 Catholic dioceses have enrolled in "Protecting God's Children." More than 11,000 people have done so in the Metuchen diocese's 108 churches. Ron Rak, the diocese's general secretary, said no volunteers at other churches have complained to the diocese about the waiver. Still, Kasprzyk's interpretation of the policy appears to be unusual. Of a dozen other diocesan parishes contacted, 11 said they do not require lectors, who read from the Bible during Mass, or eucharistic ministers to go through the program. Four of the parishes have Vincent de Paul Societies, and none requires members to participate in the program unless the volunteer regularly comes into contact with children. The diocese has received three complaints about Kasprzyk's rules and has staunchly backed him, saying implementation of the policy is his prerogative. "Father knows best as to the dynamics of the parish and the interactions of people who work there and volunteer there," Rak said. "You could imagine the untenable situation we would be in if ... we had individual volunteers or lectors deciding whether or not they wanted to participate in the program." David Clohessy of the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, a victims group that has praised Metuchen Bishop Paul Bootkoski, said the sex abuse scandal justifies the church's policy, even if it brings "some level of discomfort" to lay volunteers. "If they don't work with kids, and they are obviously not pedophiles, then it would seem to be a little excessive to worry about what might happen if they're accused sometime down the road," he said. But the alienated volunteers say checks and waivers should be reserved for priests, deacons, Catholic school workers and others who work with children. "We all agree children need to be protected. The question is, is this a proper response?" said Robert Bernot, an attorney no longer allowed to be a lector or eucharistic minister because he didn't sign the waiver. "It wasn't laity sex abuse. The clergy sex abuse problem was a two-pronged problem: what was done by our priests and what the bishops did. So now we make the laity bear the cost?"
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