Cover
story Post-Dallas: Head of review board promises to hold bishops
accountable
By MARGOT PATTERSON
Appointed to chair a new national lay review board established by
the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops at its meeting in Dallas June
13-15, Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating is making it clear that he and his fellow
board members are committed to holding accountable any bishop whose negligence
played a role in creating the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church.
If a particular diocese is corrupt, indifferent, negligent,
we will shout that to the highest trees, Keating told NCR June
24.
The Oklahoma Republican described the mandate of the board as both
retrospective and prospective. What gives the lay advisory group
unprecedented power in the Catholic church is that the board will
be reporting both to the bishops and simultaneously to the American public,
Keating said.
A former FBI agent and prosecutor with strong crime-fighting
credentials, Keating was tapped by the conference president, Bishop Wilton
Gregory, to head the new review board a week before the meeting in Dallas. Also
named to the board were Washington, D.C., lawyer Robert Bennett and Illinois
Appellate Court Judge Anne Burke. Michael Bland, a clinical pastoral
coordinator for the archdiocese of Chicago and a victim of clerical sex abuse,
was subsequently named as a fourth member of the board.
Keating said the original group named to head the lay review board
had made some modifications to the initial plans for the board outlined by
Gregory. We made some battlefield decisions that the bishop
embraced, Keating said. He was not offended by having
non-Catholics, but we were of the view that [board members] should be
Catholics, that the church should heal itself. He at first thought it should be
a larger group, and we decided that it should be no more than 11 persons. We
recommended another seven who are Catholic lay people and geographically
dispersed and people of very tough independence. None are people dependent on
the church for their livelihood.
Keating has discussed the mandate of the review board with the
press several times since the announcement of his appointment June 14. He has
said that he regretted that the new Charter for the Protection of
Children and Young People approved by the bishops in Dallas did not
mention how bishops who were guilty of contributing to the scandal might be
sanctioned. The document in Dallas was silent as to prelate involvement
and responsibility. I regret that, Keating said in a New York
Times article published June 23.
The review board does not have the power to formally sanction
bishops, but since his appointment Keating has consistently maintained that he
would do all that was in his power to seek the resignation of bishops that
obstructed justice and would bring their case up with the pope himself if
necessary. In Dallas, Keating said he was likely to suggest the resignation of
Boston Cardinal Bernard Law because of his handling of clerical sexual abuse in
the Boston archdiocese, but would reserve final judgment on Law and other
bishops until the board convenes.
In an op-ed piece published in The New York Times, Keating
followed up on these remarks.
In any case where a bishop is found to have provable
knowledge of illegal activities committed by a priest under his charge, and
where that bishop knowingly covered up such activities, he should also be held
legally accountable as an accessory to the crimes involved. The commission is
capable of calling the publics attention to bishops who do not follow the
guidelines adopted yesterday, and we intend to do so, Keating wrote.
He described the tasks of the review board as ensuring that the
policies set forth in the new charter the bishops approved are carried out
without exception or excuse and acting as an ombudsman and watchdog answerable
not just to the bishops but to the laity.
The lay review board will oversee the work of a new Office for
Child and Youth Protection, which will assist individual dioceses in the
implementation of safe environment programs and will publish an
annual public report on the progress made in implementing the standards in the
charter. The board will also commission both a descriptive study and a
historical study of the nature and scope of the sex abuse problem within the
Catholic church in the United States.
Keating was born in 1944 in St. Louis and moved to Tulsa with his
family when he was six months old. He received his undergraduate degree in
history from Georgetown University and a law degree from the University of
Oklahoma. After serving as an FBI agent, Keating became a prosecutor in Tulsa.
He went on to serve in both houses of the Oklahoma Legislature before moving to
Washington, where he served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Associate
Attorney General and General Counsel at the Department of Housing and Urban
Development. Elected governor of Oklahoma in 1994, he became the first
Republican to be elected to a second consecutive term. During his tenure as
governor, Keating has focused public awareness on child abuse, divorce and
domestic violence and drug abuse. He has come into conflict with Oklahoma
bishops because of his support for the death penalty.
As a lifelong Catholic, Keating said he was saddened that it was
necessary to devote an entire meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops to the issue of clerical sexual abuse. He added he was horrified,
angry, shocked, sad and amazed that priests would commit such crimes
against children.
While Keating praised the bishops for the charter they adopted to
respond to the sex abuse crisis, he said, I am aware that many of these
problems are self-inflicted. In far too many cases, leaders in the highest
positions of trust and responsibility were passive accomplices to the violation
of that trust and avoided any responsibility.
Robert Bennett has also said the board will be looking at the
behavior of bishops as well as priests. A defense attorney for former President
Clinton, Bennett has earned a reputation as a combative, media-savvy lawyer who
seldom loses a case. He defended Caspar Weinberger during the Iran-contra
scandal and recently was hired by the Enron Corporation to represent the
failing company. The product of a Brooklyn Irish-Catholic family, Bob Bennett
is the brother of William Bennett, former Secretary of Education in the Reagan
administration.
Anne Burke was elected to the Illinois Appellate Court, First
District, in 1996, having previously being appointed to that bench in 1995.
Burke is special counsel to the Illinois Governor for Child Welfare Services,
founder of the Special Olympics in Chicago, and recipient of over 50 awards
including Crains 100 most influential women and Lawyer of the Year Award.
She is on the board of DePaul University. Burke is widely accredited as a lead
reformer of the Cook County Juvenile Justice System.
Michael J. Bland is clinical-pastoral coordinator for Victim
Assistance Ministry of the Chicago archdiocese, and clinical counselor at the
Center for Psychological Services, Oak Lawn, Ill. Bland has worked for 10 years
directly with victims of sexual abuse by church personnel, including clergy. He
holds a doctorate in psychology from the Chicago School of Professional
Psychology and a doctorate in ministry from the Chicago Theological Seminary.
Born in New Jersey and a graduate of St. Louis University, he is a nationally
known consultant providing clinical and pastoral consultations to dioceses,
religious communities, and other church-related agencies in dealing with sexual
abuse by clergy and other church personnel.
National Catholic Reporter, July 5,
2002
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