A member of the U.S. bishops’ National Review Board on clergy sexual abuse said May 14 that if the bishops do not proceed this year with a second diocesan audit on sexual abuse “it will be clearly seen all across the country as an additional sign of retreat that will seriously undermine their effort to restore trust.”

Leon Panetta, former White House chief of staff to President Clinton, said in an address at Santa Clara University that the board is concerned about the recent move by more than two dozen bishops to postpone the planned 2004 audits and to reconsider other aspects of the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

The clergy sex abuse crisis “is not a legal crisis, not a media crisis, not a personnel crisis,” he said. “It is truly a crisis of trust and faith. If it persists and if bishops basically try to push this aside and hope the problem will go away by itself, then ultimately trust in our faith will continue to be eroded.”

Panetta was among two dozen experts on clergy sexual abuse — theologians, psychologists, abuse victims, journalists and clergy — who convened for a conference titled “Sins Against the Innocents: Sexual Abuse by Priests and the Role of the Catholic Church.” The conference was designed to shed light on the current status of the church’s sex abuse scandal.

Most of the speakers at the conference contributed essays to a just-published book of the same name that was edited by Thomas Plante, professor of psychology at Santa Clara University and clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Stanford University.

In his address, Panetta also urged the bishops to be “more transparent and have an openness to greater participation by the laity” in all church structures. He contended that, if bishops govern “not by crisis but by leadership, trust can be restored and the church will be stronger.”

Kathleen McChesney, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection, told about 250 conference participants that the sexual abuse crisis and the church’s effort to regain the trust of parishioners are not over and that audit compliance must continue.

“I think we are at the beginning, just the beginning,” she said. “We know the impact of the often-repeated acts of abuse on children, the impact on their families, the discouragement of the laity, the economic costs to the church and the erosion of the church’s moral authority.”

She said victims of sexual abuse are the “most important subgroup” in the current crisis.

“Some are healed, some are on the way, some are irrevocably broken,” she said. “They have shown incredible courage. They have spoken out like never before. They have supported one another. They have educated the rest of the world and the church to what has happened. And they have worked toward healing, reconciliation and prevention.”

McChesney said she “fully expects” her office to be directed by the bishops to undertake a second audit of dioceses this year and predicted that the matter would be resolved when the bishops meet in Denver in June.

During a panel discussion on ethics, church governance and sexuality, Dominican Father Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer who has been involved with helping sex abuse victims for the past 20 years, called for a “radical change” in church structure and governance.

“The good of the church has meant protecting the governmental system — the power, prestige and security of the bishops,” he said. “But what the (good of the) church should really mean is protecting the most vulnerable and those who have been harmed and cannot take care of themselves. It should mean due process for all those who have a right to due process, not just for those whom it will benefit in the short run.”

Father Doyle urged bishops to “stop playing hardball” and personally apologize to sexual abuse victims and their families.

Jesuit Father Thomas Rausch, a theology professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, said the sexual abuse scandal has shown how little input lay people actually have in decision-making processes in the church.

While “the vast majority of Catholics” have remained loyal to the church, “many of them have sensed that something is seriously amiss,” he said. “More lay people are becoming aware that there are no institutional checks and balances that allow them some say in how authority is exercised at all levels.”

At a press conference, Father Rausch added that there is “room for considerable change” in the way diocesan bishops are appointed.

“There are ways in which you can get input from the bottom, where the laity and clergy and bishops are solicited for suggestions and for an analysis of what kind of bishop is needed when a see becomes vacant,” he said. “The way it’s being done now is a bad system because it allows almost no (input) from local churches or even the hierarchy in the United States.”

Nannette deFuentes, a victim of clergy sexual abuse and a Los Angeles-area psychologist, said potential candidates for the priesthood should undergo rigorous psychiatric exams and counseling to prepare them for a life of celibacy.

She said she is hopeful the sexual abuse crisis in the United States will usher in broad reform, including investigations into clergy sexual abuse in Latin America, Asia and Africa.

Plante, who also edited a 1999 book on clergy sexual abuse titled “Bless Me Father for I Have Sinned,” said he still believes the sex scandal peaked a few decades ago. Media scrutiny, civil and criminal court cases, and better screening and training of priests reduce the likelihood of more clergy becoming molesters, he said.

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