Bishops should maintain zero tolerance policy

This was a week of mixed messages in the Roman Catholic Church.
On Monday, a panel of non-Catholic experts who had met last April at the Vatican issued a report suggesting that U.S. bishops were pursuing an anti-abuse policy that was too harsh on errant priests.
Friday, a survey that was conducted by John Jay College of Criminal Justice was released by the National Review Board. The board had been appointed by the bishops to investigate the problem of abusive priests. The report showed that between 1950 and 2002 there were 10,667 abuse claims made against 4,392 of the 109,694 priests and others under vows to the church. That means about 4 percent of the practicing clergy had abuse allegations made against them over a 52-year period.
The U.S. conference of bishops is now functioning under a zero tolerance policy for priests who become subjects of credible allegations of abuse. That policy is due to expire in June, and the conference of bishops will have to either renew or modify it.
Behind closed doors
In doing so, they should not be swayed by the 220-page report issued by the Vatican earlier in the week. That report grew out of a four-day symposium on pedophilia held behind closed doors during which therapists and other clinical experts from the United States, Canada and Germany were questioned.
The experts were hostile to zero tolerance policies, saying that cutting men loose from the priesthood could send untreated offenders into society without any checks from the church hierarchy. Fortunately, in the United States there are other institutions ready to accept men who abuse children. They are called prisons.
That is where child abusers belong, regardless of their station in life.
For too long, the church offered abusers sanctuary. In the most outrageous of those cases, priests were shuffled from one parish or diocese to another, allowing them to become serial abusers. In those cases, their supervisors became criminal aiders and abettors, and should have been treated as such.
An awakening
In recent years, most U.S. dioceses have recognized the evil that resulted from such cavalier treatment of dangerous criminals. And they have recognized that lenient policies were a disservice to the vast majority of clergy members who performed their duties faithfully and above reproach.
It would be a tragedy if the report urging greater compassion and understanding for abusive priests were to encourage the U.S. bishops to backslide in June.
The John Jay report has given the bishops an accurate picture of the extent of the problem over a half-century. Every priest in the United States who has any inclination toward being abusive knows the stated consequences and knows that he must seek help and guidance before he does anything to harm another man, woman or child.
The church knows that it must do a better job of identifying potential abusers before they are ordained and it must act decisively if allegations of abuse are made. Bishops know that priests who have committed criminal acts do not deserve to be shielded and belong in the criminal justice system.
Whatever the number of abuse cases there have been in the past, and regardless of recommendations arrived at in closed-door meetings of therapists, U.S. bishops know in their hearts the amount of tolerance that should be given to abusive priests: zero.