Controlled reforms

The leaders of the U.S. Catholic Church grasped for credibility this week, approving a handful of measures intended to set a new course toward accountability amid a crisis of sexual abuse in the church.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) gathered in Baltimore this week for its three-day Spring General Assembly under intense public pressure after taking no action on sexual abuse prevention at its meeting in November. The Vatican, at the time, suspended a planned vote on two measures that would have bolstered bishop accountability, citing canonical concerns and not enough time to review the proposals.

The impression since then is that “American bishops have offered the faithful new scandals rather than answers to old ones,” wrote canon lawyer Ed Condon for First Things on Monday, referencing an investigation into former Bishop Michael Bransfield, ongoing questions over the disgrace of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, and questions that surfaced last week about Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the USCCB and archbishop of the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese in Texas. An Associated Press investigation alleged DiNardo mishandled an abuse investigation, reassigning a priest who had reportedly lured an adult female parishioner into a sexual relationship. DiNardo has denied any wrongdoing.

Last month, Pope Francis issued a new universal law for the Roman Catholic Church requiring all priests and nuns to report clergy sex abuse and cover-ups by their superiors to church authorities. The pope called on the conferences of bishops around the world to implement the law within a year, a call that guided this week’s meetings in Baltimore.

After heated debates on Tuesday, mostly centered on the role of lay experts like lawyers or criminal justice professionals in abuse allegation investigations, the U.S. bishops approved four measures Wednesday and Thursday. The first will create a national sex-abuse hotline, where people can file complaints by telephone or through an online form against bishops who commit abuse or cover it up. The other three include a measure implementing Francis’ universal reporting law in the United States, another specifying that bishops will now be governed by the same code of conduct that has applied to priests since 2002, and one that establishes new standards for bishops emeriti who have resigned or were removed from office.

The measures encourage, but stop short of mandating, that lay experts take part in investigating clergy. They also do not specify a procedure for informing police of abuse allegations. (For example, the hotline will route complaints against bishops to one of 32 regional supervisory bishops in the United States.) Critics argue that leaves the bishops policing themselves and keeps reports of abuse insulated within the church.

“In the United States, there is only one appropriate ‘third-party reporting system’—the legal authorities,” said Marci Hamilton, a University of Pennsylvania professor and an expert on child-abuse prevention. She added that the bishops’ “incapacity” to give up control of child sex abuse cases “will be their downfall.”

“We find ourselves at a turning point, a critical moment in our history, which will determine in many ways the future vibrancy of the church, and whether or not trust in your leadership can be restored,” said Francesco Cesareo, the lay chairman of the USCCB’s National Review Board during a presentation to the bishops earlier this week. He said lay involvement in the review of abuse allegations against bishops was key to restoring the credibility of the church: “Not involving laity with competence and expertise in leading the review process would signal a continuation of a culture of self-preservation that would suggest complicity.”

A study released this week found the abuse crisis has left a mark on the 76 million members of the U.S. Catholic Church. The Pew Research report found more than one-quarter of U.S. Catholics say they have scaled back Mass attendance or financial contributions to their parish in response to the recent reports of sexual abuse and misconduct. Just 36 percent said they believed U.S. bishops did a good job of responding to the reports.

Time will tell if this week’s initiatives, and the bishops’ soft commitments to use laity to fight sexual abuse, can restore that lost faith.