Prompted by high-profile child abuse cases nationwide, Cardinal Francis George has called for a review of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago’s handling of priest misconduct cases since 1992, including its monitoring of offenders still working in the archdiocese.
“We hear criticism that the monitoring is not adequate,” said Rev. Thomas Paprocki, the archbishop’s delegate to the professional fitness review board. “We’re willing to look at it again and make sure it is.”
Since the archdiocese instituted a policy on handling priest misconduct in 1992, it has been praised for reporting allegations to civil authorities. But critics say the archdiocese needs to be more selective regarding which priests are allowed to work in the archdiocese and less secretive about the details of settlements to victims.
During the past 10 years, the archdiocese has spent $10 million to handle child abuse allegations, according to Jimmy Lago, its chancellor. Approximately half went to settlements with an undisclosed number of victims.
Since 1992, Lago said the archdiocese reported about a dozen abuse cases involving priests to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office. An internal review board had “reasonable cause to suspect misconduct has occurred” in those cases. Two cases resulted in charges.
In nine cases, priests were withdrawn from the ministry primarily because they were considered a high risk to children, Lago said. Three priests were allowed to remain pastors if they submitted to monitoring.
Another priest was asked to leave his parish, but later was reinstated and is being monitored, Paprocki said.
Lago said some priests–fewer than six–who were suspected of misconduct still are serving in the diocese in positions other than as pastors and are subjected to strict monitoring.
All monitoring programs, Paprocki said, require priests to sign a written protocol saying they will never be alone with a child under 18 without a responsible adult present. They must have regular psychological and physical evaluations, continue with any mandated therapy and talk with a spiritual director. And they need to work in a setting where someone knows their history, monitors their comings and goings and makes regular reports to the professional fitness review administrator.
“It’s not prison,” said Paprocki. “It’s not solitary confinement. We don’t have electronic bracelets to know where they are going 24 hours a day.”
Paprocki said there have been no reported incidents involving monitored priests. He would not say what steps the archdiocese is considering taking to change the policy, just that it seeks to limit the possibility of further misconduct without “taking draconian measures.”
Barbara Blaine, founder of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, doubts any measures would be tough enough to protect children from known pedophiles working in the diocese
“Even if a priest has claimed he’s not going to do it anymore, the risk is not worth taking. The monitor cannot be with the perpetrator 24 hours a day. We’re needlessly placing children at risk,” she said.
Under the archdiocese’s 1992 policy, a nine-member review board looks into allegations and a board administrator reports cases involving minors to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. The state’s attorney is notified when a priest is withdrawn from the ministry, according to Lago.
Of the cases the archdiocese reported, the Cook County state’s attorney filed charges in two–involving Rev. Ralph Strand, who was sentenced in 1995 to 4 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy, and Rev. Robert Mayer, who in 1993 was sentenced to 3 years in prison for abusing a 13-year-old girl in a church rectory.
Strand is still a priest in the archdiocese, but not working. “He did not want to resign the priesthood,” Paprocki said. Mayer resigned from the priesthood.
State’s attorney’s spokesman John Gorman said the majority of other cases fell outside the statute of limitations. “You can’t prosecute if somebody is over the age of 21 and the crime occurred more than three years prior,” he said.
The archdiocese also covers Lake County. George Strickland, chief of the Lake County state’s attorney criminal division, said he knows of no cases the archdiocese reported.
