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By Lisa Wesel
A volunteer panel of mental health and legal experts has begun
reviewing whether the Boston Archdiocese handled cases of sexual
abuse by priests according to its own policies and procedures.
The Victims' Rights Committee plans to review only cases that are
considered closed and only after a written request by the complainants.
"We are not acting as finders of fact," explains Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea,
Ph.D., executive director of the Trauma Treatment Center of the
Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis and chairwoman of the committee.
"Our mission is to review the process of the archdiocese, the way
it went about resolving these cases."
After reviewing each case, the committee intends to produce a report
either saying that the Church did everything it was supposed to
do, or explaining how it could have acted differently. The committee
will give the Church 30 days to review the report before making
it public.
"Ideally, if we issue a [negative] report, we would hope the diocese
would review that one case or revisit the systemic problem within
the Church," O'Dea says.
The committee wrote to Archbishop Sean Patrick O'Malley on Oct.
9 requesting cooperation from the Archdiocese, but he has yet to
respond. Fr. Chris Coyne, director of public relations for the archdiocese,
refused to comment on the letter or on the work of the committee.
"Please know that as the correspondence to which you refer is a
private one between the parties involved, no comment will be given
regarding the questions that you have submitted," Coyne wrote in
an email to Massachusetts Psychologist.
In the past, Coyne has been quoted as saying that O'Malley would
reject the formation of the panel because it duplicated the work
of two committees established by the Archdio-cese. The Victims'
Rights Committee is going forward with its work even without the
Church's cooperation.
The group came together in response to Attorney General Tom Reilly's
report on the way the Church had handled allegations of sexual abuse
by priests in the Boston Archdiocese. Reilly questioned the ability
of the Church's own committees to oversee its procedures and policies
because the committees are not independent of the Church.
"The church groups know they are only advisory," O'Dea says. "We
have the power of going public."
O'Dea also says the Victims' Rights Committee is uniquely qualified
to review the cases because each of its members specializes in the
field of sexual abuse.
The panel's members include: Jetta Bernier, M.A., executive director
of Massachusetts Citizens for Children; Thom Harrigan, MSW, LICSW,
ACSW, co-director of Next Step Counseling and Training in Brookline;
David Lisak, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at University
of Massachusetts Boston, where he also is director of the Men's
Sexual Trauma Research Project; Wendy Murphy, J.D., adjunct professor
of law at New England School of Law and founder and director of
the Victim Advocacy Research Group; and Mikele Rauch, MA, LMFT staff
psychologist at Brookline Psychological Services.
"We really hope the archbishop sees us as a potential resource
and not as potential adversaries," O'Dea says.
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