Posted Friday, June 13, 2003 at 11:30 a.m. CST

Clash between bishops and lay review board heats up

By Arthur Jones
Los Angeles

The clash of wills, interests and attitudes between the U.S. Catholic bishops and the lay National Review Board they created to monitor dioceses' sex abuse case handling, has escalated into open warfare -- on the front pages of the Los Angeles Times.

For the past six months, there has been considerable murmuring and muttering surfacing from bishops disgruntled at having to answer to lay men and women regarding their policies past and current. This augurs a stormy session at the upcoming U.S. bishops' St. Louis meeting starting Thursday, June 19.

The review board was created at the bishops' Dallas, Texas meeting in last year.

As if in anticipation of this year's meeting, the review board chairman, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating June 13 had likened some senior U.S. bishops to La Cosa Nostra in protecting their turf and their people.

"I have seen an underside (of the church) that I never knew existed," he told the Times. "I have not had my faith questioned but, but I have certainly concluded that a number of serious officials have very clay feet. That is disappointing and educational, but it's a fact," he said.

Keating continued, "To act like La Cosa Nostra and hide and suppress, I think, is very unhealthy. Eventually it will all come out." He also said Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony listened more to his lawyers than to his heart.

He said Mahony had orchestrated the move to prevent the total U.S. figures of the number of priests accused of sexual molestation from being gathered and released.

June 13 Mahony fired back.

"All I can say from the bishops I've listened to," he told the Times, "and several called me this morning -- this is the last straw. To make statements such as these -- I don't know how he can continue to have the support of the bishops."

Mahony told the Times he'll raise the issue at the bishops' meeting. There, most of the scheduled meetings will be closed to the press.

In creating the review board the bishops intended to show scandalized U.S. Catholics and the U.S. public that they were serious about preventing sexual molestation by clerics, that bishops were not protecting and would not protect abusers, and that new policies would prevent reoccurrence.

But the 300-plus members of the U.S. hierarchy are unaccustomed to having to answer to anyone about church matters, particularly highly educated and high profile lay men and women. Meanwhile, the heretofore trusting review board members -- and not all review board members will rejoice at Keating's approach -- have begun to discover for the first time how unaccountable to anyone the bishops are accustomed to being.

Arthur Jones is NCR editor at large. His e-mail address is arthurjones@attbi.com

National Catholic Reporter, June 13, 2003