On February 18, 2005, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued the results of national compliance audits of the Church's child protection policies.  In line with the way audits usually work, the auditors spent 2004 reviewing actions that had been taken during the previous year, 2003.  Then the Church utterly confused the press and the public by failing to distinguish properly between the compliance audit, which focused on 2003, and a statistical survey conducted by Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), which, for unexplained reasons, focused only on 2004. 

Thanks in part to this confusion, journalists failed to notice that the audit results conflicted with statements already issued by individual dioceses soon after the audits were completed last year.  For example, on 10/7/04, the Manchester, New Hampshire diocese's audit report, which appeared under the heading, ""Audit Conducted 8/9-8/13 2004," noted that "The diocese has entered into 26 confidentiality agreements during the audit period at the request of the victim/survivor."

 Then, when the Conference of Catholic Bishops issued the executive summary for New Hampshire, the time frame for Manchester, "Audit Conducted 8/9-8/13 2004," remained the same, but the audit results were different.  According to the new USCCB version of the Manchester audit, "The diocese has not entered into any confidentiality agreements during this period."  *See note below.

[*5/23/05 -  In its initial audit summary, the diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire reported that it had entered into 26 confidentiality agreements during 2003.  Then, in the audit report that was apparently jointly written later by diocese officials and Gavin Group auditors, the number of confidentiality agreements was reduced to 0.  Recently, the number given on the web site of the Conference of Catholic Bishops was changed back to 26.  Although it's clear that the bishops' self-reporting is just a PR ploy, it is interesting to note that Church officials believe that audit results may be altered at any time without explanation.]

Manchester's reported explanation for this discrepancy was that it did not regard the legal documents it had signed as confidentiality agreements because it had promised not to go after victims who subsequently spoke out.  Thus it seems that dioceses were free to define their answers to standard questions as they pleased, a lack of uniformity that sheds doubt on all of the audit results. 

If this conclusion seems too broad, keep in mind that New Hampshire was one of the very few places in which it was possible to compare two different iterations of the audit reports.  In this rare instance when we had additional information, we discovered a major discrepancy.  Of course, we don't know if this pattern of inconsistency is consistent across the country, so let's not pretend that we have been given verifiable facts.

More specifically, in light of these conflicts, we don't know if the total number of confidentiality agreements reported across the country--144--bears any relation to reality. (Read more about the tally of confidentiality agreements here.)  But we do know that mere handful of confidentiality agreements kept predators such as Fr. John Geoghan in business for years.

And if you are not concerned about this because it seems that no confidentiality agreements were signed in your area, remember that the information you have been fed is untrustworthy, and that an unknown number of civil cases (somewhere over two hundred in the Boston Archdiocese alone) remain unresolved.

Finally, if you were shocked by the national report's most sensational finding-- "According to CARA, 1,092 credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor were newly made in 2004 against 756 diocesan and religious priests or deacons in the United States"-- remember that we have absolutely no reliable data on the number of allegations made or the number of priests accused during 2003.

We are appealing to reporters not to dignify the Church's campaign to conceal the dimensions of this crisis by promoting the illusion that the facts have been revealed.