WASHINGTON — The bishops of the United States have received a “good but incomplete” grade on their first report card to evaluate how well they are fulfilling their 18-month pledge to protect young people from clergy sexual abuse.

The first nationwide audit of dioceses was released to the public Jan. 6. The grades are mixed, ranging from a few cases of non-cooperation to full compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People approved by the U.S. bishops’ conference in Dallas in June 2002.

An executive summary of the audit report, which includes summaries on individual dioceses, can be found on the bishops’ Web site, www.usccb.org, or can be obtained from diocesan offices.

“This was an unprecedented step by the Catholic Church in this country in a matter like this,” said Bishop Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Ill., the bishops’ conference president, at the press conference presenting the report. “The audit's results represent solid progress on the journey toward fulfilling the vision set out by the charter. I believe these findings show we bishops are keeping our word.”

The audit report recommends beginning an apostolic visitation of diocesan seminaries and religious houses of formation, which was ordered by the Vatican and the charter itself.

The report advises that relevant lay professionals should inspect seminaries, that the results of their visits be published and distributed to the laity and that the bishops’ conference should prepare a report for laity that describes the bishops’ plan for ongoing formation of priests.

Ninety percent of the 191 dioceses audited are essentially complying with the charter, the team of 54 auditors concluded. The audit was headed by William Gavin of Boston, a former FBI assistant director in New York.

Fifty-seven dioceses received “instructions” for actions needed to comply, and 125 dioceses received one or more “recommendations” for additional or changed procedures to improve compliance. A majority of the dioceses — 129 — also received “commendations” for having enacted abuse-prevention policies prior to the Dallas meeting.

The report, published by the bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection, noted that a total of 131 instructions and 297 recommendations were made to the dioceses during the audit, and more than half of them have been addressed.

The areas most noted for needing improvement were pastoral outreach to victims, diocesan lay review boards, safe-environment programs and background investigations of personnel and volunteers who work with children.

The report concluded with more than 70 general recommendations to develop the charter in order to further guarantee children's safety, said Kathleen McChesney, director of the bishops’ child protection office.

These include implementing the charter at the parish level, where most Catholics deal first with concerns of abuse; establishing a method to measure the effectiveness of safe-environment programs by no later than 2006; and asking dioceses to provide an annual report on the number of allegations of sexual abuse reported during the year and the disposition of each case.

Also, the report proposed that guidelines be developed for the ongoing supervision of clergy offenders.

While there was no summary report to show the number of offenders removed from ministry throughout the United States — those numbers were available only in the individual diocese reports — a preliminary count by Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a Chicago-based advocacy group, found that 150 Catholic priests from 56 dioceses who were removed or retired facing credible sexual-abuse allegations have moved to other dioceses or out of the country.

Locating Offenders

One problem that dioceses faced was finding accused offenders. “There are instances of clergy who, after being accused of sexually abusing a minor (or, in some cases, an adult), cannot be located,” says the report.

“Each of these individuals should be held to answer these accusations, but the greater concern is that they may be a danger to a minor,” the report says. “Therefore, every possible attempt must be made to locate the alleged perpetrator and direct him back to the proper venue to respond to the complaint. This is even more critical when outstanding criminal or civil charges exist.”

“It's presented a huge problem, not only for the [U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops] but for the Conference of Major Superiors of Men [a national organization for religious-order priests and brothers], who are in a different category altogether,” McChesney said. One-third of U.S. priests are in religious communities.

Michael Bland, one of the 12 lay members of the bishops’ National Review Board, said the audit provides an important baseline for the annual reports that will follow.

“In June 2002 we didn't know if every diocese had a lay review board. We didn't know if a diocese had victim-assistance coordinators,” said Bland, a survivor of clergy sexual abuse who works with the victims’ assistance ministry of the Archdiocese of Chicago. “I think in some ways that's what made the audit remarkable — I think it shows a remarkable commitment from a number of Church leaders to provide a safe environment for children and to deal with allegations with compassion and healing.”

Victims Groups React

Some victims’ advocates question whether the audit is all it purports to be — a credible and independent scrutiny of how bishops are now working to protect young people from clergy sexual abuse.

“Fundamentally, we think the process was very, very flawed and is being dramatically misrepresented,” said David Clohessy, national director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

“To a degree, we feel like the focus was on paperwork, policies and procedures, which have never been the crux of the problem,” he said. “No priest molested a child because of a nonexistent or poorly crafted code of conduct. So to a degree — without being too critical — we have to question whether they measured the right things in the right way.”

National Review Board member Robert Bennett said he was “a little troubled” by the negative response.

“It's not perfect; it's a start. Nobody's declaring victory,” he said. “But this was the first time I know of in my lifetime that bishops permitted large number of ex-FBI agents to go into their offices. You've got to give credit where it's due. Children are safer today then they were a year ago or two years ago.”

Nonparticipants

Nearly all U.S. dioceses participated in the charter compliance audit.

Two dioceses, St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands and the Armenian Exarchate of New York, were not audited due to scheduling difficulties, Gavin said.

The Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, is in ongoing litigation, which prevented Gavin's team from conducting interviews and gathering information according to the audit design, he said.

The charter compliance audit is the first of two reports being released early this year that address the clergy sex-abuse crisis. A second major report on the nature and scope of the crisis will be publicized Feb. 27 by the National Review Board.

The Diocese of Lincoln, Neb., was one that received an “instruction” from the auditors to provide information for that study.

But according to an official statement from the diocese, it has not participated because “that study has been found, in the opinion of diocesan officials and others, to contain inherent flaws that make it an inaccurate instrument and thus is harmful, not helpful, to the proper dealing with the problem of sexual misconduct.”

Ellen Rossini writes from Richardson, Texas.