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INTERVIEW:
Anne Burke
June 11, 2004    Episode no. 741
Read This Week's November 7, 2008
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Read more of correspondent Kim Lawton's interview with Anne Burke, interim head of the National Review Board, about the June 14-19, 2004 meeting of the U.S. Bishops:

Photo of ANNE BURKE I'm going to be the interim chair until my replacement is appointed. And the three other members whose terms are up at the same time as mine, which is June 30 -- we will remain until our replacements are appointed. I presume that Bishop [Wilton] Gregory will be appointing us or our replacements on June 30 or thereabouts.

I think it's important that the terms be adhered to. I think it's important that there be a changeover of not only the executive committee, so to speak, of the National Review Board, but leadership and new people. We only have 13 members total right now, though we're down to 12 since Governor Keating left. It's important for as many laypeople to be involved in this process as possible, so that's one of the other reasons for the terms of office and appointments -- that more people who are good lay Catholics in the Catholic Church can participate in this process.

The people that have been on the board are professionals. Deference to the bishops wasn't something that ever really was on the table for any of us. We were asked to do a job, which was: follow the charter, commission the studies, do the audits, and set up a national office. It was very, very, very positive that we participated in that way. We got our job done and almost had no interaction with the bishops whatsoever.

[The bishops] are going to be presented with a proposal from Archbishop Flynn of Minneapolis, who chairs the ad hoc committee. Archbishop Flynn and his ad hoc committee and the National Review Board met; we discussed what the audits could be for a long-term process and what they should be in 2004, which would be the second audit of all the dioceses in the United States. So they'll be presented with that proposal, in addition to an urging to permit the National Review Board to commission the study on the "causes and the contexts," and I'm hoping that they will vote on that after their discussion [so] that we can proceed and get on with our business.

There's no use having a board or having an Office for Child and Youth Protection if we have no work, and our work is the auditing of the dioceses in the United States to make sure that all the dioceses are safe for children, and to let the Catholic laity in the United States know that the bishops mean what they say when they say they want to protect children in their dioceses.

The bishops have asked this board to tell them if they are in compliance, and compliance is a measurement. Are you complying with what you said you'd do in the charter? The only way to measure that is through an audit process. They've been audited on compliance [with] the charter before, so this would just be another one. Without that, we are not in compliance -- the board is not in compliance with the charter, nor is Dr. Kathleen McChesney's office, the Office of Child and Youth Protection, because she's mandated from her office to do an annual report, and the annual report is to measure the compliance, and the compliance can only be measured by the audits. So she would not be in compliance either if this doesn't occur within 2004.

Postponing to November the decision to do the audits does appear that -- the effect of the postponement would mean that they're dragging their feet. But I don't necessarily say that. Maybe they truly wanted to see what the audit instrument looked like, but the effect of what they did is to look like they postponed it. And I do believe that the majority of the bishops in the United States want to do these audits for their parishioners.

We used those stronger words because we were in a position early on in February to -- [we] should have known about an underlying current among the bishops of a postponement or dissatisfaction with the audit process. [It] was February 2 [that] Cardinal Egan drafted his first letter to Bishop Gregory. We went along for all those months not having that information. Not only that; we had a major press conference February 27 and the release of the John Jay study as well as the National Review Board study. It wasn't surfaced; we did not know that there was something lingering out there. Nor did I know or three of my colleagues know or Archbishop Flynn know on the day of March 23, when we appeared before the administrative committee to explain how we're going to proceed in the next months, what we were going to do with regard to the Request for Proposal, the RFP, for the "causes and context," and also the audits. We did not know that there was an elephant in the room with regard to the audits. Had we known that, my proposal, my presentation to the bishops and the administration committee, would be far different. It would be far more of an advocacy position as opposed to one that's just being informative. It was only after the fact that we learned of it. And I don't think that's an open position to have, working with the group of bishops.

I don't really know what the range is among the bishops; I'm not privy to their internal information. All we can do is respond to their actions, and their actions were that they postponed it. Fifty-some bishops voted to postpone the audits out of 300 and some. The rest of the bishops -- I'm not sure what their positions are. ... I don't know how widespread that skepticism is among the bishops, but it causes for us some alarm, yes.

One has to remember that the bishops enacted the charter calling for a lay review board. And we're all only doing what was asked of us, so we don't need a defense. It's what they asked us to do. If they choose not for us to do anything more, we really don't have any way of combating that, except on moral authority of some sort that would suggest that once you undertake to make environments safe for children you should continue doing that, whether it be by compliance audits under the charter or not. But it would seem to me that that would be in the best interests of the Catholic laity of the United States that someone or they themselves, the laity, make sure the bishops are adhering to what they said they would do under the charter and have a compliance audit.

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I think we are in a state of crisis in many ways. I mean, there are still a lot of victims out there who will be coming of age, and it's historically known, now that we know through [the John Jay report], that it takes 10 to 15 years to really have an outcry of the fact that they were abused by some priest some time ago. We still don't know how many more victims are out there, and we have to assume that there are some, and hopefully we pray that because of some of the precautions that have been taken in the seminaries over the last 15 years, 10 years, and because of the knowledge the priests have had and the bishops have had over the last 10 to 15 years, that there has been some prevention with that. ... The only way we can restore trust and move forward is to make sure that the bishops mean what they say, and that is to proceed with the things they said they wish they were going to do, and that is make the environment safe. In order to measure that, we have to have an audit. I don't know how else to measure what the diocese in Dallas does versus the diocese in Denver versus the diocese in New York. I mean, we need to determine whether or not, on a national level, the dioceses are really putting in safe environment programs, whether they're still putting in lay review boards, whether they're ministering to the priest who has been accused and to victims in their time of need -- to make sure that's being done, and the only way to do that is through an audit process.

I would've liked [the bishops] to have that retreat [from June 14-19, 2004] without any business. And the only way that could have been done was if they said [on] March 23: "Move forward, Kathleen McChesney; move forward, Lay Review Board." And then they would have been able to have a no-business spiritual retreat time. However, that did not happen. So we can't sit back and wait for another six months to make sure our dioceses are safe. I think it's unfortunate that it happened that way, but it's unfortunate that they didn't just say, "Go forward with this process."

This is an important time in the Catholic Church. This is an important time in regard to what the Lay Review Board's report said. There are a number of recommendations that we suggested that could be very positive for the Catholic Church as a whole at this time. I think those kinds of things could be reflected upon, and I hope that they do. I know that they haven't had time really to digest, as a body of bishops, our report, and this could have been a good time for that.

When we were asked to be volunteers on this board, none of us knew the kind of time, the kind of stress, and the kind of work that was going to be required of us. On the one hand, it was fine because all of us are professionals, and we were able to gather, set our own plan, set our own time frame and how we were going to work as a body of people from all over the country. It's been kind of a roller coaster. We have met physically almost twice a month for the last 23, 24 months; we have been on hundreds of conference calls, e-mails, and it's been a remarkable commitment of time and energy and stress, and I'm so pleased to have been on the board and also with my fellow colleagues on the board. They're remarkable people. [They] love the Church and came to the board with some expertise in every area -- not only law, but communications and health and education. It's just a wonderful group of people, and I'm glad we were able to be a part of this process and hope that we would be able to continue on. ...

The one thing I might have to go to confession on, so to speak, is I was a passive Catholic until this time. And I know now that every Catholic in the United States can no longer be a passive Catholic. We have to be involved in our church at every level. And my faith is far ... stronger now than it ever was.

Am I happy with what the hierarchy had done in the past to help proceed with this abuse scandal? No, I'm not. But my faith in my church is greater now than ever before. We have to restore trust in the leadership, and that's what we're working on.

It's important that other members of the board be thanked for the work they have done. It has been a struggle, and it's been a lot of work, and all the members have given up a lot of their own personal life, their work life and their family life for this, and I know that they did it selflessly, but I think they should receive some sort of recognition and appreciation for their work.

I think the meeting in Denver is a critical juncture in the Catholic Church in the United States because we have already undertaken a two-year process of trying to restore faith in our hierarchy, restore trust, and also to make the environment safe for children so there will be no more victims. If there is a failing to go forward in June, I believe that a lot has been lost in that effort. And I think we have made a lot of strides in that process -- small steps: by going forward with the charter, by having a Lay Review Board, by having safe environment programs begin so there will be no more victims. But on the other hand, if we fail to go further and complete what we said we'd do, it's a step back that is, I think, a tremendous step back. If there is no vote for Kathleen McChesney to go forward, for us to proceed, then why are we here? Why would the Office of Child and Youth Protection exist, and why would the Lay Review Board exist anymore? We would have no work. It would send a message to everybody that we didn't mean what we said.

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