(Worthy Adversary) Everything the bishops have been led you to believe about the independent power of lay review boards is deliberately misleading.<\/p>\n
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Read the Entire Article and View Comments… here<\/a><\/p>\n Citing a sex-offening priest\u2019s \u201cright to privacy,\u201d a newly released Vatican document shows that priests are able to shield potentially damning evidence from review boards who are charged with determining whether abuse allegations against a priest have merit.<\/p>\n The 2006 document, sent from a Vatican office that oversees religious orders, says that canon law states that no priest\u2019s files may be turned over to a third party, including internal and external review boards, without the priest\u2019s permission and signature.<\/p>\n You can read the documents here.<\/a> Start at page 94 (stamped on the actual page as 00526). The findings of the Vatican office\u2014saying that McDonald\u2019s privacy was violated and that review boards may not access a personnel file without the priest\u2019s signature is on page 100 (stamped 00532)<\/p>\n The review boards were set up by bishops nationally as a part of sweeping 2002 reforms instituted as a result of the Boston Archdiocese sex abuse scandal. They are a part of the \u201cCharter for the Protection of Children and Young People.\u201d While religious orders like the Benedictine\u2019s were not a part of the agreement, the Canon Law cited in the Vatican\u2019s response applies to all priests, whether they belong to a diocese or a religious order.<\/p>\n In fact, a simple google search using the words \u201cpriest cleared by review board\u201d yields 74,000 results \u2013 with page after page after page of stories about how reviews boards didn\u2019t have enough evidence to kick a priest out of ministry.<\/p>\n How many of those boards didn\u2019t see the priest\u2019s secret file? I\u2019m guessing all of them.<\/p>\n Experts say that without the priests personnel file, review boards miss \u201c99% percent\u201d of the church\u2019s own evidence against an offending priest, including written admissions of guilt, letters from victims, witness accounts, treatment records, and internal investigation reports. As a result, hundreds of offending priests nationwide\u2014whose cases went before similar review boards nationwide\u2014may still be working in parishes and with children.<\/p>\n The document was released as a part of the file of Benedictine priest and monk Finian McDonald, who worked and lived at St. John\u2019s Abbey and University in Collegeville, MN. McDonald, who church officials called \u201ca serial predator of our students,\u201d (see doc 655<\/a>) had been accused of molesting numerous college-age students at the Catholic college.<\/p>\n McDonald\u2019s case was brought before the Benedictine\u2019s review board, who was charged with determining whether allegations against McDonald had merit and whether he should remain a priest. When the review board was given McDonald\u2019s file, which included a psychiatric report that called McDonald a serious \u201cmoral, legal and financial risk\u201d (see doc 293<\/a>), McDonald petitioned the Vatican, citing common knowledge and canon law.<\/p>\n I served on a lay review board.<\/p>\n They were a puppet then and they remain a puppet now.<\/p>\n And now we have the proof.<\/p>\n