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November 9, 2008

Cardinal responds to questions about priest

By Catholic New World staff

In an interview with Cardinal George, we asked him about a recent newspaper editorial that questioned the relationship between the Archdiocese of Chicago and a priest of the Diocese of Wilmington, Del. The Cardinal made the following comments:

Cardinal George: The basic fact overlooked in the newspaper editorial is that Father Ken Martin is not a priest of the archdiocese. He was never assigned here, never received faculties or ministered as a priest here. He was here in 2002 looking for work outside of priestly ministry. He edited liturgical texts for the archdiocesan publishing house from 2002 until his own diocese finally determined his status in 2008.

The work was done mostly on a computer from his home hundreds of miles from Chicago. Criticism of a decision to offer work to a priest who can no longer support himself in ministry might be fair enough, but his presence in my home as a guest in 2002 was not an attempt to hide a priest accused of sexual abuse from the National Review Board.

Catholic New World: Did the National Review Board later complain to you about Martin’s being here?

Cardinal George: “No, they didn’t. I believe that my relations with the National Review Board have been open and honest. I suggested and approved members for the board from Chicago. I welcomed them, thanked them and celebrated Mass for them when the board met in Chicago.

When requested to do so, I let the board members know when I heard complaints about their work from other bishops, even when my trying to keep everyone appropriately informed about what I was hearing was misunderstood as a personal criticism on my part. When requested to do so, I intervened with the Holy See so that a delegation from the Review Board would be received by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith during a Roman visit. Every question put to me or to others in the archdiocese by auditors has been completely and truthfully answered; and the public reports make this clear. I have many failings, but I have been honest with the Review Board and continue to be so as president of the bishops’ conference.

The National Review Board conducts audits that ask each bishop to account for his priests or for priests who do ministry in the diocese. The archdiocese has cooperated fully with these audits, as it has also, for 20 years, reported every allegation of sexual abuse by a priest to the local civil authorities and to the parishes where the offense occurred. Ken Martin’s name and the accusation against him are on record in his own diocese and were reported where the offense occurred.

The National Review Board doesn’t ask bishops, here or elsewhere, about visitors or houseguests who have never been in ministry locally. Their concern, shared by the bishops who set up the board, is that children be protected and that no priest guilty of sexually abusing a minor be in public ministry. That is the case in Chicago and has been for years.

CNW: The editorial claimed that “the church had to be dragged kicking and screaming into accepting it had a problem.” Do you believe that to be the case?

Cardinal George: I can’t speak for every diocese, but the archdiocese has been more scrutinized and has adopted more safety precautions than most other institutions in our society. Priests have been removed from ministry as our own Review Board determined that there was reasonable cause to suspect that they had, in fact, offended. Every allegation has been reported to the civil authorities, and every parish has been notified when an offender has been removed.

There has been one instance in my years here when the archdiocese’s supervising of an accused priest whose case was still being examined resulted in utter failure. I have taken responsibility for that, and the archdiocese has published extensive reports on what went wrong, on our part and on the part of the civil authorities. The work to assist victims and their families and to purify the priesthood continues, and willingly so, without “kicking and screaming.”

CNW: The editorial also raised a concern about your “management style.” Would you care to comment?

Cardinal George: Thanks for asking! I have been in church administration since I was 35 years old, in this country and around the world. My conviction has been that, if you ask people to do their best and trust them, you can usually count on their keeping their promises to God, to the church and to one another. It works if people are basically honest and adequately formed in the faith. I appoint directors, but I do not manage directly on a day-to-day basis the many ministries and the many thousands of people who make up “the archdiocese.”

Finally, I’d like to say that the Catholic Church is a “rock” because of its foundation on Christ, not because its ministers are without fault. Banks, major corporations, even countries come and go, as do archbishops. Catholics know that their church will be around when there may be no more newspapers and when the map of the world might look a lot different than it does now. That conviction is rooted in Christ’s loving promise and is enough to give us hope in the midst of scandals and crises, in both church and society.