The report, entitled "Preliminary Findings of the Investigation into Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse of Minors in Illinois", can be directly accessed in PDF format here. It's not a long read, and it's surprisingly readable. And in a couple of ways, it's a pretty remarkable document.
Predictably and distressingly, the chief way it's remarkable is that it's remarkably bad for the Catholic Church. Whenever a report is made regarding how the church has handled sex abuse allegations, my rule of thumb is, "Imagine how bad it will be. Then multiply that by a factor of three." That roughly holds true in this case. As one would expect from a government report, it prints facts:
Based upon the Office’s review of the Illinois Dioceses’ files, the Illinois Dioceses have, in total, received allegations related to sexual abuse for approximately 690 clergy. The Illinois Dioceses have publicly identified only 185 clergy as having been “credibly” accused of sexual abuse. As a result, the Illinois Dioceses have received allegations of sexual abuse for more than 500 clergy that the Illinois Dioceses have not shared with the public.As all of us are veterans of stories of clerical sexual abuse, we'd have reasons to look askance at that ratio: only 26% of allegations are credible? That doesn't seem right. And the Attorney General's office apparently agrees: the report is highly critical of how the dioceses have handled cases.
These bullets, which were pasted directly from the report, not only are damning, they also are well-reasoned and well-written. I presume this report was written by a committee of lawyers; as I have to read legal documents in my professional life, I can only wish that all attorneys had the ability to write this clearly and persuasively.
- The Office found dozens of examples where the Illinois Dioceses failed to adequately investigate an allegation of clergy sexual abuse it received from a survivor.
- Among the most common reasons for a diocese to decide not to investigate was the fact that a clergy was either deceased or had resigned from ministry when the allegation was first reported to the diocese. Dioceses failed to investigate allegations for deceased or resigned clergy even when they received allegations from multiple survivors. Failing to investigate deceased or resigned clergy ignores both the impact such a decision has on survivors seeking closure and that an investigation might lead other survivors to come forward. Failing to investigate also makes it impossible to determine whether other clergy, including those who are alive and involved with the church, helped conceal the abuse.
- The Illinois Dioceses also failed to investigate clergy who were order priests. Allegations related to order priests were simply referred to the order from which the priest came, even though the priest was ministering with the authority of the bishop and within the geography of the diocese. Once a referral was made, little to no follow up from the dioceses was commonplace, leaving survivors without answers or resolutions.
- Additional reasons for not investigating include: a lawsuit was filed; the survivor wanted to remain anonymous; a criminal investigation was opened; and the clergy left the country. In many of these cases, information and evidence related to the alleged abuse was readily available and easily confirmed.
- When the Illinois Dioceses investigated an allegation, they frequently found reasons not to deem an allegation “credible” or “substantiated.” In the Office’s review of clergy files, a pattern emerged where the dioceses frequently failed to “substantiate” an allegation when it came from only one survivor, even when the dioceses had reason to believe that survivor and reason to investigate further. The dioceses also often found reasons to discredit survivors’ stories of abuse by focusing on the survivors’ personal lives.
To that point of the report's persuasiveness, let me just observe this: I approached the report with a fairly jaundiced eye. The Attorney General in Illinois is an elected office, and I don't believe that any elected official is going to conduct such a high profile investigation and not come away with something to make political hay with. I'm not saying I'm wrong to be skeptical in this case; this report amounts to a prosecutor's brief, and the defense may have a different side of the story to tell. And unlike the Pennsylvania grand jury report, this preliminary report has no details; these bullets amount to grand, sweeping and mostly-unsubstantiated generalizations. But even someone as skeptical as me couldn't find anything of substance to criticize in the report. It makes no mistakes of fact that I could identify, it avoids histrionics and its conclusions seem warranted. In short: I find it to be pretty credible.
Which is pretty disappointing from the point of view of the church. I'm still skeptical of politicians, but I'm coming around to the point of view that these outside legal reviews are necessary for purposes of church accountability. The report itself puts it this way:
The Office’s investigation is ongoing, and the information included in this update is preliminary. However, the Office has reviewed enough information to conclude that the Illinois Dioceses will not resolve the clergy sexual abuse crisis on their own. It appears that the Illinois Dioceses have lost sight of both the key tenet of the Charter and the most obvious human need as a result of these abhorrent acts of abuse: the healing and reconciliation of survivors. Long after legal remedies have expired, the Catholic Church has the ability and moral responsibility to survivors to offer support and services, and to take swift action to remove abusive clergy. The actions taken by the Catholic Church should always be survivor-focused and with the goal of holding abusers accountable in a transparent manner.That's as fine a statement of my personal views as I could wish to make myself. And that points to the second thing about the report that I found remarkable: the insistence here upon the human element, and the church's moral responsibility. And that's coming from a bunch of government lawyers. Remarkable.
Most of my professional life was spent organizing and feeding back data about clinical services to the managers of mental health services. What I learned was that the clinicians and clinical managers cannot see the forest for the trees. Everyone is focused not only on the particular client but also that client’s particular problem. I could see how a client was being treated by other clinicians at other agencies for other problems, and how that client was doing in comparison to similar clients across agencies.
ReplyDeleteI suspect many diocesan officials were doing what they thought was obvious in the individual allegation, e.g. the priest was deceased, resigned, belonged to a religious order, etc. Or that the victim had filed a lawsuit, a criminal investigation had been opened, or that there was only one allegation, or that there were reasons to question the credibility of the victim.
All these practices probably seemed reasonable in the individual case, what they add up to is a very damning picture of failed management.
Do we need a lot of investigations internally or externally to monitor and oversee the situation?
I would suggest a good computer information system standardized across the country whose data is available to all parties, management, law enforcement, victims, average Catholics, etc.
Like the census bureau the data could give feedback to external parties at an aggregate level, e.g. we could know how many allegations had been made and their dispositions, but not precisely what parish, or what priest, etc.
Such aggregation could easily provide red flags for law enforcement, victims, etc. to demand more particular accountability.
And we would get away from bishops solely monitoring themselves without placing a particular group as their external monitors. The bishops in fact should think of themselves as the servants of all, accountable to everyone. The transparency of a common information system would be a great beginning
Good insights, Jack. I think you are right about the "...forest for the trees" problem, and that there are parallels with your profession. Also agree about the need for a common transparent information system.
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