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U.S. Cardinals Meet Officials at Vatican

Aired April 23, 2002 - 14:04   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now the latest on the summit under way at the Vatican between officials there and U.S. cardinals. CNN's Jonathan Mann is live in Rome with more details. What can you tell us, Jon?

JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, all of this began with crimes that were committed in secret. It continued for years, some people believe because of secrecy within the church hierarchy. And so at today's summit there was a very obvious desire for a display of openness.

The cardinals arrived for two sessions in the residence and workplace of John Paul II. It's the first time U.S. cardinals have ever been specifically convened as a group to come meet the pope at the Vatican. It is also the first time that the pope himself has personally and publicly addressed the crisis.

"Because of the harm done by some priests and religious, the church herself is viewed with distrust. The abuse which has caused this crisis is by every standard wrong, and rightly considered a crime by society. It is an appalling sin in the eyes of God."

Many people are wondering what the cardinals are going to do. Some people expected that they, as have many people in Boston, would call for the resignation of Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law, a man who has become a lightning rod for criticism because of his own role in transferring priests who were believed to be abusing children, rather than pushing to defrock them.

Cardinal Law is among the cardinals who came here. And at a preparatory meeting last night, the matter of his resignation wasn't quite alluded to. But Cardinal Law did have some very specific words for his colleagues. We heard about them today from one of his colleagues, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARDINAL FRANCIS GEORGE, CHICAGO: He started saying that, in a sense, if he had not make some terrible mistakes we probably would not be here. And he apologized for that. He's facing it very clearly. He didn't speak about a possible resignation and nobody asked him about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MANN: So what do the cardinals do now? Well, there were no specifics discussed at today's meeting. But we're told that this evening in Rome -- and it is now evening in Rome -- the U.S. cardinals were to gather to talk about some specific proposals that they could bring to tomorrow's session to run by the Vatican cardinals that they had been meeting with, and perhaps even to run by Pope John Paul II himself -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Jonathan Mann from Rome. Thank you.

The sex abuse scandal has also brought up the contentious issue of gay priests. The head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was surprisingly candid on the subject today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BISHOP WILTON GREGORY, U.S. CONF. OF BISHOPS: It is an ongoing struggle. It is most importantly a struggle to make sure that the Catholic priesthood is not dominated by homosexual men. Not only is it not dominated by homosexual men, but that the candidates that we receive are healthy in every possible way: psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually.

That is the ongoing concern of seminaries. And I do believe that most seminaries throughout the United States are working vigorously to make sure that they provide a healthy environment, not just in terms of sexual orientation, but in terms of human development.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Our next guest is an expert on the subject of priests and sexuality. Thomas Plante heads the psychology department at Santa Clara University in California. He's also the author of "Bless Me, Father, For I Have Sinned."

Dr. Plante, thank you so much for being with us.

THOMAS PLANTE, SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY: You're welcome.

PHILLIPS: Are you surprised by what Bishop Wilton said? This is something you've known about for quite a long time. You have worked with these priest. Did this shock you to hear such a blatant statement?

PLANTE: No, I can't say that it did shock me at all. We've be doing evaluations for many years for people entering in religious life. Full psychological evaluations, and it doesn't shock me at all.

PHILLIPS: Let's talk about these psychological evaluations. The purpose of these is for what?

PLANTE: Well, anyone who enters into religious life is asked to conduct -- complete a psychological evaluation. That includes a clinical interview, psychological testing and so forth. And what we're looking for is, as in your report, people who are psychologically healthy. We're looking for people who don't experience psychiatric disorders of any significant kind. And we're also looking for risk factors for a variety of problems, including sex offending people, people who have had alcohol or other untreated substance abuse problems, personality disorders and so forth.

PHILLIPS: How direct do these questions get? Do you say to these individuals, are you a homosexual? Have you practiced homosexuality? Does it get that direct?

PLANTE: Oh, absolutely. We get very direct, in terms of people's not only sexual experiences and history, sexual orientation, issues with psychiatric troubles of any sort, family history, and the like. We get very direct.

PHILLIPS: How do you know if they're being honest or not?

PLANTE: Well, you never know for sure. But some of the psychological testing that we conduct includes validity measures. Such as, for example we use a standard test called the MMPI-2, which is used throughout the country in all sorts of environments -- police officers, firemen, clergy, and others, take these kinds of test.

And there are lie scales, defensiveness scales. So we look at these to get a sense of what are the probabilities of the person being truthful or deceptive with us.

PHILLIPS: Have you screened any of the individuals that are involved in the accusations that have come forth now?

PLANTE: You know, that's a tough question to answer, because as a psychologist, I have to maintain confidentiality and can't disclose who or who I'm not seeing. But for the most part, I could say that over the past 14 years evaluating about 125 to 150 clergy in the West, for the most part I've had nothing but good experiences.

PHILLIPS: So what are you supposed to do then, if someone does come forward -- if a priest or someone who wants to become a priest says to you, yes, I'm gay, or yes, I have practiced homosexuality? Where do you take it from there?

PLANTE: Well, my job is not to tell the church who -- who they should or should not take. My job is to try to give them a better picture of who is this human being that they're considering taking into the priesthood. And what kind of issues are best -- they should they look at while they consider the application and formation process.

So we try to give them a fuller picture of who this person is and what red flags might be out there. Whether they seem to be at-risk for the development of sex-offending problems, substance abuse problems, personality problems and the like.

PHILLIPS: Is homosexuality a deterrent to people, even heterosexuals, from joining the church? PLANTE: It's an interesting question. For the most part, we see a good number of men that are heterosexual in orientation entering into religious life. But we also see a good number of men of homosexual orientation. And I think part of the point here is that sexual orientation in and of itself is not a risk factor for sex crimes against kids or against adolescence.

But we do see some feelings of comfort among some people and discomfort among others, about having different sexual orientations in a religious community.

PHILLIPS: How are sexual abusers who are priests identified and treated?

PLANTE: Well, if there's any accusation of sexual misconduct of any sort, for the most part, in the experiences that I have had, over the past, again, 14 years or so, these men are immediately pulled from their duties, an evaluation is conducted.

If there seems to be merit to all of this, they get generally an in-patient experience in one of several facilities in the United States or Canada. And the victims are worked with separately by other people. And of course, legal counsel is involved as well.

PHILLIPS: Are they allowed to go back to the parish once treated?

PLANTE: Of course, some of these cases that we've seen, like in Boston and elsewhere, tragically, that has happened. But to be honest, in the cases that I've dealt with over the past -- over more than decade, for the most part, no, they haven't gone back to parish life.

They have been assigned to places where they are closely supervised and they are not involved with minors. Perhaps they might say mass at a retirement home or a convent or something like that. Or have other kind of more desk jobs.

PHILLIPS: Are they always remorseful when they admit to you, or you are able to bring the truth out of them?

PLANTE: Well, not always. I'd say the majority are. Some of the men who I've worked with are in fact terribly remorseful, in fact, suicidal. But there are, unfortunately, a small number of people who are not remorseful at all. Maybe they justify or rationalize what they did. And those are the ones who are, of course, much more dangerous.

PHILLIPS: All right. Dr. Thomas Plante, Santa Clara University. Thanks for sharing your insights with us today.

PLANTE: Thank you.

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