Archbishop: Church tough on priests

? The Catholic Church’s new policy for dealing with priests accused of sexual abuse is tougher than most state abuse laws, the head of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas said.

While prosecutors are not interested in allegations of abuse from long-ago because of the statute of limitations, those same allegations would be investigated by the church, Archbishop James P. Keleher said Saturday.

“We now have to go back and look at allegations of incidents that occurred years and years ago,” he said.

The “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” was adopted by U.S. Roman Catholic bishops at their spring conference in Dallas last month. Under the charter, any priest found to have molested a child would be removed from his duties, no matter when the abuse occurred. The priest may be allowed to remain in the priesthood, although in a limited capacity and in a closely monitored environment. The charter also requires bishops to report all child abuse accusations to authorities.

Critics, including victims of priest sexual abuse and many lay Catholics, say the charter doesn’t go far enough. They want abusive priests to be removed from the priesthood.

Keleher said he was “very happy” with the new charter.

“I went to Dallas concerned, because the original version of the charter had said that if a priest had one misconduct charge many years ago, that might be tolerated and he might be able to continue serving.

“I talked with my priests about that, and I said, ‘I don’t accept that, because my theory is, how do you know there’s just one incident?’ And also, I think that to restore confidence in our people, we have to have zero tolerance. People don’t like to use that phrase, but that’s what it is.”

Even though the charter has gone to the Vatican for approval, the archdiocese already has implemented it, Keleher said. Most of the provisions were in place before the new charter was adopted, he said, under the archdiocese’s own policy.

Keleher said he had not removed any priest under the new provisions.

One priest, the Rev. Dennis Schmitz, was placed on indefinite leave shortly before the bishops conference because of allegations that he molested a boy. Schmitz, a former archdiocesan vocations director, has been charged in Douglas and Nemaha counties.

As required by the new charter, the archdiocese has an independent review board, made up mostly of laypeople who investigate allegations. Members include a priest, a former police investigator and a lawyer who specializes in child abuse. The archdiocese also has a response team, which immediately looks into abuse allegations.