The US Catholic Church claimed major progress in combating sexual abuse in a report issued on Tuesday, but victims dismissed the results as "largely glorified, voluntary self-reporting."
The report released by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops was based on an audit conducted by a former top FBI official of 191 of the 195 dioceses in the US church.
The aim was to measure compliance with 17 articles of a "zero tolerance" charter adopted by the church in 2002 to prevent future abuse and deal with allegations of misconduct.
"We made a promise to protect our children and young people," said Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the Conference of Bishops, in introducing the report.
"The audit results represent solid progress ... These findings show that we bishops are keeping our word," he said.
But victims expressed skepticism about the report. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said on its Internet site (www.snapnetwork.org): "SNAP maintains that the results are largely glorified, voluntary self-reporting that show little substantial progress by bishops."
Bob Swart, who was abused by a Jesuit priest in 1963, said the report was not a true audit because the inspectors had to accept whatever information the church gave them.
"The auditors didn't really investigate or audit in the true sense of that word. They just went to each diocese and were handed a file envelope which they accepted on face value," he said.
The scandal exploded two years ago with revelations about a cover-up of sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston that eventually led to the resignation of Archbishop Bernard Law.
Law was accused of failing to act on evidence that priests were abusing children. Rather, the church covered up the facts and allowed offenders to be transferred to new parishes, where they continued to victimize children.
The crisis quickly spread to other dioceses, leading to the suspension of hundreds of priests and the resignation of several bishops. Last September, the Boston archdiocese offered US$85 million to settle the claims of some 500 victims. Most accepted the offer.
William Gavin, former head of the FBI's New York bureau, headed the audit and recruited 54 inspectors, most of them former FBI agents, to conduct the survey, which aimed to measure actions taken since 2002 to implement the charter.
The auditors issued several hundred individual recommendations to dioceses to improve their performance, most of which were quickly implemented. Gavin said 90 percent of dioceses were now in full compliance with church guidelines.
The charter mandated the church to reach out to victims for healing and reconciliation, establish mechanisms to respond promptly to allegations of abuse, appoint coordinators to care for victims, report all allegations to the police and establish "safe environment" programs to ensure the safety of children involved in church activities.
Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston attorney who represented 120 abuse victims, said the audit was "a baby step forward." He said the church had failed to meet its commitments to make people aware of sex abuse allegations and to set up a record keeping system of the accusations.
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