ST. LOUIS — Bishop Wilton Gregory said he is in no hurry to replace the straight-talking former Oklahoma governor who headed the U.S. bishops' review board on sexual abuse until his resignation June 16.

Frank Keating, who has long been known in political circles as a loose cannon with a mouth that gets him in trouble, resigned three days before the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops gathered in St. Louis for their semiannual meeting. Keating said he had planned to quit after a year of service, but he also left with a parting shot at bishops who, in his view, failed to cooperate with investigations into the causes of clerical sexual abuse.

While not directly criticizing Keating, Bishop Gregory, the bishops' conference president and bishop of Belleville, Ill., said that under the emergency circumstances of last year's abuse crisis he might have been too hasty in his selection of the governor for the lay panel.

“It's very much like quarterbacking a game on Monday and quarterbacking a game on Saturday afternoon. Your Monday-morning calls are always much more effective,” Bishop Gregory said at a press conference June 19, the first day of the bishops' three-day meeting.

This year, he said, he will take more advice from more bishops and the board itself, and he will also take more time.

“I'm not going to rush to do that,” he said. “We have a board in place. It functions well.”

Keating's no-holds-barred talk about the abuse crisis occasionally scandalized Church leaders since he was named chairman of the newly created board last June.

Most recently, the former FBI agent and federal prosecutor raised the hackles of Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, and some fellow members of the review board when he compared some U.S. bishops to “La Cosa Nostra” — the murderous Sicilian-American crime organization. Cardinal Mahony suggested Keating step down.

“In talking to a lot of bishops, he seems to have lost so much credibility that one has to ask, is it able to be recaptured?” Cardinal Mahony told The Washington Post on June 14. “I personally think it would be almost impossible.”

“The problem with inflammatory statements is that they put a barrier between the board and the bishops,” Robert Bennett, a Washington lawyer who serves on the panel, told the Register on June 20. “While we are monitoring the bishops, for us to have an adversarial relationship with the bishops does not help us accomplish the goal of protecting children.”

The national review board is mandated with monitoring the implementation of the bishops' Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

Cardinal Mahony

Keating had been particularly critical of Cardinal Mahony, whom he said has obstructed the review board's efforts to complete a $250,000 research project designed to determine the “nature and scope” of sex abuse among clergymen. The bishops' conference called for the study during its historic meeting in Dallas in June 2002. About twothirds of the nation's 195 dioceses have returned the board's questionnaires, and Keating has said others are obfuscating and foot-dragging in a deliberate effort to stall progress.

California bishops objected to the original survey questionnaire, voting in May to call for an immediate halt to the study because it would have caused them to violate state laws that protect privacy and confidentiality. Bishops expressed concern for the privacy rights of victims and the accused.

Recently, however, Cardinal Mahony said he and other California bishops have worked out modifications with researchers from New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which the board contracted to conduct the survey, and will be able to provide the needed data.

But Dan Mahoney, a longtime spokesman for Keating who works with the former governor in his new position as president of the American Council of Life Insurers, indicated that his boss felt powerless to conduct his responsibilities while up against Cardinal Mahony's opposition.

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, however, said in an interview at the bishops' meeting that the open disagreements between Keating and Cardinal Mahony did not directly cause Keating's resignation, which he understood had been planned for months.

But, he acknowledged, “Anytime you have a public altercation of that nature, conversation is made more difficult. That's unfortunate.”

In an interview with reporters outside the bishops' meeting, Archbishop Harry Flynn of Minneapolis-St. Paul said review board members also had asked for Keating's resignation.

Confrontations

Keating's string of confrontational comments began the day he was appointed as chairman of the board June 14, 2002, when he told the Register and other reporters that bishops who mishandled past sexual-abuse allegations in their dioceses should resign or get fired by Pope John Paul II and that he would do all he could to make it happen. He said some bishops should not only be fired but should be prosecuted as accomplices to rape.

His comments drew criticism from ranking members of the Church hierarchy, who said Keating was mistaking his charter as review board chairman with his former role as a federal prosecutor and FBI agent. Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia told the Register that a bishop's resignation is strictly an issue between the bishop and the Pope. Keating continued calling for the heads of bishops, however, and publicly pushed for more lay control over the Church.

In a move that only added fuel to the concerns of his critics, Keating told the Register early in his tenure that Martin Luther, leader of the 16th-century Protestant revolution, was right in trying to get lay members of the Church to lasso control from Church leaders and the Pope in the interest of reform. He said local diocese review boards should consist of men and women who would make sure clergy “p-r-a-y and not prey, p-r-e-y.”

Robert Royal, leader of the Faith and Reason Institute in Washington, D.C., criticized Keating for suffering from “mission creep” and not fully understanding canon law and his role on the board. Keating has never disputed those who claimed he tried to cross boundaries and expand his role beyond what bishops asked him to do.

“It's true that Frank Keating wanted to go beyond the charter to some extent, out of concern for the welfare of the Church,” Dan Mahoney said.

As for statements that offended Catholic leaders, Mahoney said that's just his boss' style.

“Frank Keating tells the truth,” Mahoney said. “Unlike other politicians, Frank Keating does not conduct polls and consult with focus groups before speaking his mind. The result is that he sometimes says things that people don't want to hear, but it's blunt, it's candid and it's refreshing. It's truth.”

Cardinal Mahony, however, doesn't see truth in Keating's most recent statement about bishops. In a statement, the cardinal referred to the mafia comments as “irresponsible and uninformed.” Tod Tamberg, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said: “Comparing the Church to an organization that kills people and deals drugs — that is just way out of line.”

But Dan Mahoney said it was Cardinal Mahony who was out of line, causing problems for the entire Church by refusing to assist in a discovery process the bishops had asked for.

“Most bishops complied with the process and were happy to do so,” Dan Mahoney said. “But having a few bishops failing to go along with the process wasn't an option. When you have the leader of the largest archdiocese in the United States not complying, that's a problem. Without the cooperation of the Los Angeles archbishop and without full support of the rest of the board, [Keating] feels that he can do more good from the outside. He will continue to work toward Church reforms outside of the official process, in his own way.”

In his resignation letter to Bishop Gregory, Keating defended his “Cosa Nostra” statement.

“I make no apology. To resist grand jury subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics, to deny, to obfuscate, to explain away — that is the model of a criminal organization, not my Church,” Keating wrote.

During his tenure, Keating helped establish the Office of Child and Youth Protection. Under his leadership, the board also made progress on the bishops' call for a full accounting of “causes and contexts” of the sex-abuse crisis.

The leader of an organization of adult victims of past sexual abuse by priests said members are disappointed over Keating's resignation.

“We feel that Gov. Keating was acting too cautiously most of the time, but we admire his courage to stand by his words,” said Barbara Blaine, president and founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “We think it's sad that Cardinal Mahony is the one who's obstructing but Keating is the one who has resigned.”

Blaine said her organization has formally requested that Bishop Gregory appoint someone with a law-enforcement or prosecutorial background to replace Keating.

“Bishop Gregory has listened to us in the past, and we're hoping he'll do the right thing now,” Blaine said. “We're confident he'll at least consider our request.”

Illinois Appellate Court Justice Anne Burke, the review board's vice chairwoman, will serve as interim chairwoman until the bishops' conference makes a formal appointment.

Wayne Laugesen is based in Boulder, Colorado. (Ellen Rossini in St. Louis contributed to this report.)