Catholics Cite
Better Child Protection

Roman Catholic dioceses nationwide have taught more than 6 million children to protect themselves from sexual predators and have conducted 1.6 million background checks on workers in response to the clergy sex abuse crisis, according to a new report.

Auditors hired by America's bishops have found that nearly all of the 195 U.S. dioceses have policies for reviewing molestation claims and reporting allegations to the authorities, the National Review Board, a lay watchdog group, said in the report released Thursday. The diocese of Lincoln, Neb., and four Eastern Rite districts called eparchies have not participated in the audits.

Despite improvements, church leaders must do more, including measuring the effectiveness of the safeguards they've put in place and deepening the church's understanding of what victims suffer, the panel said.

''Discussion with victims provide evidence of serious needs that still must be addressed in order for the victims and their families to find the healing that they need,'' the board said.

The report is a review of the board's work on the fifth anniversary of its founding.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops created the lay panel to monitor diocesan reforms enacted in 2002 at the height of the abuse crisis.

The scandal erupted with the case of an accused priest in the archdiocese of Boston, then spread nationwide and beyond. More than 13,000 molestation claims have been made to dioceses, which have paid more than $2 billion in settlements since 1950, according to separate studies conducted for the bishops.

The child protection plan that the bishops adopted in the wake of the crisis bars guilty clergy from any public church work, raising complex questions about how dioceses can supervise the priests after they're removed. In some cases the Vatican has laicized, or defrocked, offenders. They have left the church completely.

The National Review Board has been encouraging bishops to conduct random parish audits to check how well the reforms are working and learn what approaches are the most effective. This year, several dioceses volunteered for parish audits in a pilot program that the board hopes will be a model.

A safe environment working group made up of board members, bishops, and consultants has been studying how children in dioceses have been taught to identify inappropriate conduct, looking at age and grade appropriateness and church teaching relevant to the training.

The group made recommendations based on its review, but those conclusions have not been made public, said U.S. district judge Michael Merz, chairman of the review board.

The national board also recommended best strategies for local diocesan review boards that help individual bishops evaluate abuse claims. A bishops' panel is reviewing the suggestions.

Starting next year, only one third of dioceses will be required to have an audit, although others can volunteer for a review. No plan is in place yet for how to choose them, Merz said.

Besides stressing the need for more attention to victims, the board said that bishops should be more aware of how a parish suffers when its priest is removed.

''Parishes also become victims of sexual abuse,'' the board said. ''Members of parishes experience both a sense of betrayal or outrage over accusations that led to the removal of a pastor.''

Regarding clergy, the board said bishops must work harder to repair relations with priests, ''many of whom feel alienated from both the bishops and laity'' because of the scandal.

The board urged bishops to work faster in reviewing claims and restoring wrongly accused priests to the pulpit.

''The phenomenon of false accusations is very, very uncommon,'' said Merz, who sits in the Southern District of Ohio. But the board has heard ''anecdotally'' from priests' groups about slow justice for wrongly accused clergy. (AP)