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American Morning

Catholic Church Leaders Develop Draft of Plan For Dealing With Abusive Priests

Aired June 04, 2002 - 08:30   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: There is developing news today, Catholic Church leaders developed a draft of a plan for dealing with abusive priests. They're making that plan available to the public today. "The Boston Globe" already has it.

Jason Carroll now joins us live with more on the story.

Jason, what do we know?

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.

We have a copy of the draft report here as well. The headline in all this, not sure that the victim's family members are going to be happy with this draft report coming from the national conference of bishops. Why? Many of these victims said in the past what they're looking for is a zero tolerance or a one strike and you're out policy, that something like that should be adopted. But according to this draft report this indicates that the bishops will allow an exception, namely if the cleric only had one offense, and has not been diagnosed as a pedophile, has a clean record for that offense, and that person should be allowed to continue with his priestly duties.

But there are some points that the victims should agree to, namely the report says that the diocese will report any accusation of sexual abuse of a person who is a minor to the proper authorities, and cooperate with their investigation.

Second, when the investigation of a complaint against a cleric so indicates diocesan authorities are to relieve the alleged offender promptly of his ministerial duties.

Third, as a preventative measure, regarding acts of sexual abuse committed subsequent to this date, even a single act of abuse of a minor will bring about a request for laicization.

And regarding acts of sexual abuse, if a minor committed prior to this date, if the cleric is a pedophile or if he has committed more than one act of sexual abuse of a minor, there will be a request for the cleric laicization, even without his consent, if necessary.

Also there has been a problem in the past, Bill, of transferring priests accused of abuse from parish to parish. That's what we saw in the cases dealing in Boston. This report outlines a plan to have a review of a priest's record before he is transferred to another parish, so definitely some victims are going to be happy with that point in the report.

So there are some points in this report that some of the victims should agree to, but obviously, with the zero tolerance, this is something that a lot of the victims have been asking for. At least according to this draft report that we have here so far, it is something that the National Conference of Bishops are not willing to agree to just yet.

The National Conference of Bishops will be meeting next week in Dallas. Again, this is just a draft report. Obviously they're putting this out here at this time to try to get some sense from the public in terms of how the public is going to react to this.

So hopefully, throughout the day, we'll be able to get some more clarification on this report from some of those participating in the conference which is scheduled for next week -- Bill.

HEMMER: And more next hour here. Jason, thanks. Jason Carroll, live here in New York.

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