Commission Recommends Training for Priests

The commission charged with evaluating the sexual abuse prevention policies of the Boston Archdiocese has recommended more training for priests and more opportunities for victims to come forward.

The commission, which includes several faculty members at Harvard Medical School (HMS), was formed last March by Boston Cardinal Bernard F. Law ’53 in the wake of widespread media attention to sex scandals within the archdiocese.

The commission outlined procedures for reporting abuse cases to legal authorities and an education program about sexual abuse for parishioners and their children.

“We must protect and promote the safety of children, respond with compassion to those who have been harmed, take action to redress the wrongs, and extend God’s healing love to all those injured,” said the report, which was released on Monday.

“The archdiocese really didn’t have a policy...especially not to address the issue of reporting,” said Donna Norris, assistant clinical professor in adolescent forensic psychiatry at HMS.

The archdiocese is currently reviewing the recommendations and has said it hopes to have a final policy by December.

“We had a very frank discussion with the Cardinal and he said he was certainly going to implement these recommendations,” Norris said.

Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly continues to watch the process of reform in the archdiocese very closely, according to Norris.

Some of the measures are already being implemented. Training for priests and other church employees will begin later this month. A program will soon teach parents, teachers and child care providers how to teach children how to avoid and deal with sexual abuse.

The archdiocese—and especially Law—found itself the subject of nationwide scrutiny with the child molestation conviction last February of former priest John Geoghan and accusations that he had molested 130 children over his 30-year career. There were additional allegations that Law and other archdiocese officials knew of the abuse and had covered it up by moving Geoghan from parish to parish.

Last spring, nine Harvard faculty signed a petition calling for Law’s resignation. Its author, Loker Professor of English Robert J. Kiely ’60, said the new announcements do not change his position.

He said he continues to believe that only restructuring church authority would prevent child-abuse and other injustices.

“Some amends are being made, but the damage has been done,” he said.

Denis M. Schweder, president of the Harvard Catholic Students Association responded to the announcement more optimistically.

“I am confident that the outcome of the efforts by the Commission, the Cardinal and others involved in the process, will indeed be very positive and promising,” Schweder wrote in an e-mail. “These efforts have the potential of preventing incidents of sexual abuse from happening in the future.”