Can the Church Be Saved?

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Already Dillard's loyal, well-educated and well-connected parishioners are vocally contesting his suspension. There's a tough trade-off for swiftly protecting the public: not everyone is comfortable with the lack of due process that zero tolerance provides for the accused. Of course, there was little due process when investigations were left in bishops' hands. And last year the Vatican issued new rules so discreetly that most churchmen don't know that anything was changed. Rome quietly published, in Latin, a papal directive known as a motu proprio (meaning under his personal authority), tucked inside a long annual record of the Holy See. It directed that allegations of sex abuse be brought secretly for judgment by Rome's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, once known as the Inquisition, keeping procedures strictly in church control. No mention was made about informing civil authorities.

Nor has the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops produced universal guidelines for how zero-tolerance policies will be fairly administered. Jan Malicki, ordained in Poland, came to North Miami in the late '80s as an associate pastor. In 1998 two women accused him of sexual abuse while one of them was a minor. Malicki says the diocese made him a scapegoat, rushing to announce his imminent arrest, and then claimed the church bore no responsibility under First Amendment protections. Even though county investigators concluded two years ago that they had no basis to charge him, Malicki is still on a leave of absence. "The archdiocese has left this priest twisting in the wind, trying to wash their hands of this," says his attorney, Ellis Rubin. "Has this gone too far?" wonders Dillard's predecessor at St. Augustine's. "I think every priest now worries every day he may be accused of something."

As the accusations pile up, the church's relationship with the law is facing revision. To this day, only 19 states require clergy to report suspicions or allegations of sex abuse against minors to civil authorities. While legislators rush to write the church into "mandatory reporter" laws, many bishops say they've already pledged to tell the cops of any new charges. Some dioceses, like those in Boston and Bridgeport, are combing through their secret archives to hand over details of all cases, going back 49 years. But in New York, Cardinal Egan has barely noted the changing weather. He will retain power over problem priests for himself, reporting abuse charges to police only if the victims agree and he feels there is "reasonable cause" to believe them. Back files will stay closed.

States are also looking at their statutes of limitation for sex-abuse claims, which differ widely. A few, such as Florida, can pursue criminal charges in most cases, but some states don't allow prosecution more than one or five or 10 years after an injured child turns 18. That has freed most predator priests from criminal convictions and long jail terms. But neither side felt it won a resounding victory when the suit filed by a plaintiff against Denver's highly popular Rev. Marshall Gourley was thrown out because the statute of limitation had expired. Gourley maintains his innocence.

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