Cardinals Call for Policy to Defrock Abusive Priests

VATICAN CITY — Emboldened by Pope John Paul II and stung by an unprecedented sexual abuse scandal at home, U.S. Roman Catholic cardinals called Wednesday for steps making it easier to defrock priests guilty of sexual abuse. But they stopped short of a “zero-tolerance” dismissal policy.

Wrapping up two days of extraordinary sessions with the pope and senior Vatican cardinals, the U.S. delegation said it had set the stage for a comprehensive plan to wrest the American church from its most serious moral and legal crisis in modern times.

Their final communique was short on specifics. It called for new procedures to speed the dismissal of any priest “who has become notorious and is guilty of the serial, predatory sexual abuse of minors,” as well as first-time offenders deemed to be incorrigible. It recommended safeguards to screen out problem candidates from seminaries.

But it made no mention of other steps many of the cardinals had said they wanted: a “one-strike” rule for all future sex offenders, mandatory reporting of all abuse cases to law enforcement agencies, and greater involvement of lay Catholics in overseeing the church’s treatment of offenders. Nor did it spell out how church canon law should be changed to make it easier to defrock priests while protecting their right to appeal.

Even so, the high-powered meetings are likely to be remembered as a defining moment, when an issue that the Vatican once viewed as an “American problem” irreversibly became its own. The meetings also increased pressure on American bishops to formally adopt a plan that will convince Catholics that they can entrust the church with their children.

Even with tougher standards of accountability and openness on sexual abuse, the cardinals said, it might take years for the church to regain its credibility. The scandal, they conceded, has not only damaged victims and cost millions of dollars in settlements, but it has also weakened the church’s moral voice.

Critics of the church were disappointed by the communique but not surprised.

“Historically, there has been, and there remains, a huge gap between what bishops say and what bishops do,” said Barbara Blaine of Chicago, founder of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. “Their promises sound good, but their performance is lacking.”

Fundamental decisions lie ahead for the church. Chief among them is how to deal with priests who abused minors many years ago but have since appeared to be leading successful and healthy ministries. There is likely to be tension between bishops who believe in the Christian virtue of repentance and forgiveness, and an outraged public that seems in no mood to forgive and forget.

Before leaving Rome, the Vatican and U.S. cardinals dispatched a letter to the priests of America voicing “regret that episcopal oversight has not been able to preserve the church from this scandal.”

They called on bishops to set aside a day of prayer and penance throughout the United States “to implore reconciliation” between sinners and abused members of their flock.

In their communique, the cardinals dismissed the idea, put forward by some Catholics, that a married priesthood would reduce pedophilia by clerics. The cardinals declared that “a link between celibacy and pedophilia cannot be scientifically maintained,” and they reaffirmed the requirement that priests lead celibate lives.

Speaking to reporters, the cardinals sounded confident that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops would approve a comprehensive plan against sex abuse when its members meet in Dallas in June. They said the pope’s exhortations and the chastising of bishops by an outraged public would spur the bishops to approve the still-unwritten plan.

“This meeting was neither the end nor the beginning of a response to the sex abuse crisis,” said Father Thomas J. Reese, New York-based editor of the Jesuit magazine America. “We are in neither the first inning nor the last.”

American bishops have been grappling with the sexual abuse issue for more than a decade. Indeed, some of the proposals outlined here Wednesday echoed similar initiatives advanced in 1993 but ignored in many dioceses.

For example, a report to the bishops conference in 1994 said the best way for the church to deal with accusations of child molestation by clergy was in “a spirit of openness, justice and compassion.” It said sexual abuse policies should “clearly state a willingness to cooperate with government authorities to the extent possible.”

Since then, dozens of American priests and a bishop have resigned or been fired because of sex abuse allegations.

There have also been calls for the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, where the scandal began in January after the Boston Globe disclosed that his archdiocese had moved from parish to parish a pedophile priest accused of molesting as many as 130 boys over three decades.

The proposals from the cardinals would for the first time allow some sex abusers to be removed from the priesthood. Dismissal would be swift for any priest “who has become notorious.” In the case of a less serious offender, a bishop could demand dismissal if, after a review of the case, he considered the priest a continuing threat to the young--a step that is now difficult to take under canon law.

“That’s clearly a ratcheting up,” Reese said. “If we look at the original guidelines, the ones they’re proposing now are stricter. They’re talking about lay involvement [in overseeing cases]. They’re talking about dismissal from the priesthood . . . and they’re talking about this being binding [on bishops] across the board.”

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago said the Polish pope had previously been wary of dismissing priests “because he lived, as he told us again and again, in a communist state where administrative law was misused against human rights.”

But the pope’s remarks to the cardinals Tuesday marked a shift. “People need to know that there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young,” John Paul said, adding that the abuse of minors was both a civil crime and “an appalling sin.”

The pope’s views were clearly on the cardinals’ minds. “Once you listen to the holy father, and once the holy father says there is no place in priestly ministries for someone who harms children or young people, then you know you have to work from there,” Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington said.

Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, president of the U.S. bishops conference, acknowledged that the final statement was “skeletal.” But he said most U.S. bishops are already putting many of the proposals into practice in their own dioceses.

But controversy remained over how to deal with old cases of sexual abuse involving priests who may have only one incident of abuse on their record.

“I think anyone who in the future would do something like this to a child or a youngster, that’s it,” McCarrick said, wagging his finger for emphasis. But he said a 30-year-old isolated case might be another thing. “I’ve got to pray about that one, and think about that one more, and listen to the laypeople more.”

Asked whether an abusive priest who has been rehabilitated could continue his ministry, Gregory said: “Personally, I’d say no. However, when we meet in June, that will be a hotly debated question. . . . Some bishops might want to seek the counsel of a wise group of laypeople before making that decision.”

At the Vatican’s insistence, the tougher procedures would allow accused offenders to appeal any bishop’s decision to an ecclesiastical court. But the appeal process, which can drag on for years, would be accelerated, church officials said.

American bishops thought they had resolved the clerical sex abuse problem when they issued their 1993 guidelines. But those were nonbinding, and some bishops did not follow them. Among those bishops was Law, who is facing increasing calls from parishioners in Boston--and senior clerics elsewhere--for his resignation as archbishop.

A knowledgeable source told The Times that a message indicating that many senior American clerics want Law to resign was privately delivered to members of the pope’s inner circle of advisors this week.

Gregory said the issue was not discussed during the meetings of the last two days and that the situation rests in the hands of the pope.

Asked whether John Paul supports the Boston cardinal, papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said Wednesday night: “I cannot say that. I lack information on that point.”

Several cardinals have publicly distanced themselves from statements in The Times from a cardinal and a bishop, who asked to remain anonymous, about the call for Law to resign.

“There was this great rumor that came out of the West that said there was this cabal, there was a bunch of cardinals all set to ask for his resignation,” McCarrick said. “I think that was made out of whole cloth. None of the cardinals I spoke to--and I spoke to them all--had anything other than amazement about that story. So I don’t think that was true.”

The cardinals’ communique capped one of the most visible encounters ever between the Vatican hierarchy and leaders of the American church. Not since 1989 had so many senior American clerics converged on the Vatican to focus on a problem back home.

After ignoring the sex scandals for nearly four months, the Vatican summoned the American cardinals for what it hoped would be a low-profile “consultation.” The Americans, eager to shore up their battered reputations at home, called the two-day meeting a “summit” and gave frequent briefings to the news media.

TV cameras recorded their movements as they shuttled in minivans between the Vatican-run seminary where most of them were lodged and the Apostolic Palace, where they held their private meetings. The cardinals wore business-like black cassocks and crimson skullcaps known as zucchettos.

John Paul did not attend their meetings. He addressed them in his library Tuesday and had them over Wednesday for lunch. Otherwise, he went about his usual business, including a general audience at which he appealed for an end to the long standoff between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.