Abuse policy review, changes 2/19/06

Abuse policy review, changes
Chancellor named to oversee process

By Michelle Martin
Staff writer

The Archdiocese of Chicago has hired an investigator to conduct an independent overview of its handling of a recent abuse case and asked for a complete review of its policies and procedures for monitoring clergy accused of sexually abusing children.

Both moves come as Cardinal George has named Chancellor Jimmy Lago as the person responsible for overseeing the efforts of all employees and offices to make sure children are protected.

Lago, who met with reporters Feb. 15, said the archdiocese has also committed itself to working more closely with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. It will, for example, notify the state agency every time it receives an allegation that a child has been abused by a member of the clergy or archdiocesan employee—even if the allegation comes from an adult who reports abuse from decades in the past.

The archdiocese already notifies DCFS immediately of any current allegations, Lago emphasized.

The initiatives come in the wake of the January arrest of Father Daniel McCormack, then pastor of St. Agatha Parish, on charges that he had sexually abused two boys. Since then, he has been charged with abusing a third boy, who came forward after the first two cases were reported in the media.

The archdiocese and Cardinal George personally were widely criticized for not removing McCormack from ministry sooner. The priest had been questioned by Chicago police at the end of August 2005 after one of the boys reported being molested three years ago; he was released without charge because the state’s attorney did not believe there was enough evidence to prosecute him.

In the initiatives announced Feb. 15, an independent firm, Defenbaugh and Associates, will review the handling of McCormack’s case and the case of Father Joseph Bennett, who stepped aside as pastor of Holy Ghost Parish in South Holland after the McCormack case broke. Bennett had been under investigation for two years—and had been assigned a monitor for his activities—after two adult women came forward and said he had abused them as children.

Former federal agent Terry Childers will review the monitoring procedures the archdiocese has used, both for priests under investigation after allegations are first received, and those who have been removed permanently from ministry after the cardinal determines that there is reasonable cause to believe the allegations against them are true.

The results of both reviews will be made public, said Lago. That will be necessary to restore credibility to the archdiocese, although it won’t be enough, he said.

“Credibility isn’t something you restore instantly,” he said. “We’re going to have to earn it again. Are we like everybody else? I would like to say we’re the diocese you can trust, but unless we say what went wrong here, we can’t do that.”

Lago, a social worker with a background in child-protection work, is a married father of twins, as well as the archdiocesan chancellor. That makes him uniquely qualified to serve as the point person on the issue, Cardinal George wrote in a memo to clergy and archdiocesan employees announcing the change.

His job is to make sure everyone—from the legal office to the Vicar for Priests to the Independent Review Board—is working together, and to make sure Cardinal George is aware of all the pertinent information “from the earliest moment,” Lago said.

“It has to be somebody who isn’t going to be intimidated,” he said, adding that he asked for the ability to recommend disciplinary action against anyone who does not comply with the protocols.

Until news of McCormack’s arrest broke, the Archdiocese of Chicago had enjoyed a relatively good reputation for handling allegations or clerical sex abuse, Lago said.

At the time, archdiocesan officials said they tried to get the child’s family to bring the allegation to them so they could mount an investigation into whether the report was “credible”—a much lower standard than the legal system would need. In the interim, McCormack was told to avoid being alone with children and another priest living in the St. Agatha rectory was asked to monitor his activities.

Because of the delay in the probe, one boy has said McCormack molested him between August and December. Two of the families have filed lawsuits against the archdiocese.

“We should have removed him at the time,” Lago said, noting that he and the cardinal have been asked repeatedly why he wasn’t. The answer is that the archdiocese had not—itself—received the allegation, let alone enough information to determine if it was credible, even though police investigators have said they believed the child.

“I’m not pleased with the answer, but it is the answer,” Lago said. “I don’t think it would happen again.”

In the future, under the ongoing changes in archdiocesan policies, allegations made to DCFS or the police will be treated as allegations to the archdiocese, Lago said, and any priests involved will be subject to possible temporary removal from their posts. That could have happened in McCormack’s case but didn’t.

“I’m not talking about every priest being removed if someone calls and said Father So-and-So abused me,” he said. “But if the sense is that it might have happened, especially if it’s a current case, there are provisions for the priest to be removed temporarily. It can be done within 24 or 36 hours.”

The weekend before the initiatives were announced, Cardinal George apologized to parishioners and priests for the fallout from the scandal in two letters.

The letters were publicized the same weekend more than 250 Catholics rallied in front of Holy Name Cathedral to show support for the cardinal.

“I must apologize to all of you for the great embarrassment every Catholic must now feel in the light of media scrutiny of these events,” the cardinal wrote. “In particular, I am deeply sorry for the pain of those Catholics who are part of St. Agatha’s Parish.”

The letter to priests was not made public by the cardinal or other archdiocesan officials. However, it was widely reported to have read, in part “I apologize to each of you for not finding some way to at least provisionally remove McCormack even without an accuser or an accusation. … I want to say now that if there is any priest who is leading a double life, who is engaging is dishonest or sinful practices that destroy the church, he should, for the sake of the church, come forward.”

When the news about McCormack’s arrest became public, a nun who had been principal of a school at Holy Family Parish on Roosevelt Road said she had reported suspicions about the priest to the Office for Catholic Schools in 2000, including hand-delivering a letter about an incident in which a fourth-grade boy reported that McCormack had told him to take off his pants.

The boy’s mother brought it to the principal’s attention, but after the mother met with McCormack, she asked the principal not to pursue the matter, according to the principal, who said she remained uncomfortable and wrote the letter. The letter has not been found.

Connie McCartney, one of the organizers of a Feb. 12 rally outside Holy Name Cathedral, said no one is happy with what has happened, but calling for the cardinal to resign, as some have done, goes to far.

“We certainly do not condone what has been happening,” McCartney said. “It’s a frightful thing. But Cardinal George is not entirely responsible. It does not fall on his shoulders alone.”