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The report is by no means the end of the matter. The investigators will give the order dossiers on accused friars and administrators. A former St. Lawrence brother, who has pleaded not guilty, will go on trial in September. A civil damage suit has been filed against the order, and others are likely. Meanwhile there is an eerie tie to another scandal. Father Gale Leifeld, identified by victims as an abuser, who was promoted to principal of St. Lawrence, later became academic dean of Sacred Heart School of Theology, near Milwaukee. The school recently removed Leifeld and another administrator accused of sexual harassment of five seminarians in the past two years. An interim report on those incidents is due this week.
As devastated as the Capuchins have been, they can regard last week's report as a noteworthy achievement. The order's leaders displayed courage in commissioning the independent investigation aimed at preventing future abuse. Although the report concludes that the Capuchins installed a good policy in 1988 urging employees to report suspected abuse, it proposes tighter procedures to make the Capuchin system a model for others.
Father Andrew Greeley estimates that the church across the U.S. spends $50 million a year on therapy for priests and damage judgments to victims -- and that 2,000 to 4,000 priests may have abused 100,000 underage victims. Some Catholics wonder whether the scandals point to underlying problems in the priesthood. Robert W. Pledl, a Catholic attorney representing St. Lawrence victims, is struck by how insensitive and defensive the clergy were. "I just don't think that would happen if priests had families of their own," says Pledl, who thinks mandatory celibacy creates a priestly world where "women and children are the enemy." Whether or not that is fair, the accumulating scandals signal the need for reform.