NYC’s Egan Amends Policy on Reporting Suspect Priests

The New York Archdiocese, under increasing pressure to cooperate with law enforcement, now will automatically forward the names of all priests suspected of sexual misconduct to local district attorneys.

The plan, similar to a decision recently announced by the Brooklyn Archdiocese, was developed after New York church officials initiated discussions with local district attorneys, spokesman Joseph Zwilling said in a statement this week.

Last month, Cardinal Edward M. Egan announced that New York priests suspected of sexual abuse would be subject to investigation by a committee of church and lay officials. If the accusations were found to have merit, he said, the name of the suspected cleric would be sent to law enforcement officials.

But that policy came under heavy attack from a host of church critics, who said that Egan and other officials seemed more interested in protecting priests and shielding the archdiocese from a wave of lawsuits than they were in helping victims. Although Egan insisted he would “actively cooperate” with district attorneys, criticism mounted that the New York Archdiocese--the nation’s third largest, with more than 2.4 million parishioners--was lagging behind the more aggressive policies concerning sexual abuse adopted by Roman Catholic Church officials across the nation.

Egan also had been criticized for protecting priests suspected of sexual abuse when he was archbishop of Bridgeport, Conn., during the 1990s. Recently revealed court transcripts in several cases of alleged sexual abuse showed that he strongly defended church officials.

Egan, however, since has said that he was simply trying to ensure that the legal process treated both sides fairly. Court records also indicate that he transferred priests suspected of abuse to other positions within the church, typically after they had been referred for counseling or other treatment.

Amid the current controversy, grand jury investigations of alleged church misconduct have begun in New York’s Nassau and Westchester counties. Some observers say these probes--along with pressures that Egan may have received during a recent trip to the Vatican with other U.S. cardinals to discuss the scandal--convinced him to drop his long-standing objection to automatically sending the names to local law enforcement officials of priests suspected of sexual abuses.

“Everyone who believes they know of something of this sort should go directly to the authorities,” Egan said last week before the policy was formally unveiled. “And any archdiocesan official who has a suspicion of such a horror will do the same.”

District attorneys representing the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens--along with those in seven suburban counties that are part of the diocese--expressed satisfaction that Egan’s latest plan was a sign of more direct cooperation.

Zwilling, the church spokesman, said the archdiocese was prompted to make the move by the recommendations of a special advisory committee that was formed to investigate the sexual abuse issue. The panel “included psychiatrists, attorneys, a former district attorney and a sitting judge,” Zwilling said. “They reviewed our policy and said this is the direction we should be moving in.”

But others question whether the policy will produce better results.

“People like myself are still going to be skeptical,” said National Catholic League President William Donohue. “I’ll be interested to see what happens the next time there’s a miscreant priest. What are they going to do about him? It takes courage to say, ‘You no longer belong here. You’ve lost your vocation. It’s time for you to get out.”’