Priest Abuse Board

Associated Press - breaking on the wire | August 1, 2002

[NYer]

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) _ A former head FBI agent will join a group of mental health and counseling professionals and clergy on the Diocesan Review Board newly created to review allegations of sexual misconduct by priests.

Bishop James Moynihan announced Thursday that Les Amann would serve as chairman of the six-member board the diocese created in April to help address the widening priest sex abuse scandal confronting the Catholic Church in America. Amann was an FBI agent for nearly 30 years, incluti.o 14 as the senior supervisory resident agent in Syracuse. He now owns an investigative and security consulting firm.

The board's task is to assist the bishop in assessing allegations of sexual misconduct by clergy and determining fitness for ministry. The board also will regularly review the diocese's policies and procedures for dealing with sexual abuse of minors. The Syracuse diocese has said it is investigating claims against at least five priests for past allegations.

Others on the board are:

_Robert Ford Jr., the director of social work for Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton.

_Kathryn Ruscitto, the senior vice president of St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center in Syracuse.

_Sister Sharon Whellahan, the outreach minister and educator for the Rural and Migrant Ministry of Oswego County.

_Nancy Wright, retired associate director of the Adolescent Psychiatric Clinic at SUNY Health Science Center in Syracuse.

_The Rev. Joseph Zareski, pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church, New Hartford, N.Y., and assistant chancellor/secretary to the bishop.

AP-ES-08-01-02 1620EDT

[NYer]

A former head FBI agent .....????!

[Desdemona]

Actually, IMO, if this man is a devout, practicing Catholic, this could be a very good thing. I had a class on interviewing and a guest lecturer we had was an investigative cop who specialized in interviewing and interrogation. He could get a confession like nobody's business. Cops like this can almost read minds.

If this guy is good at interviewing, he would be a good asset.

[Salvation]

too bad he is not on the National Review Board, but we'll give him to the Syracuse Diocese. LOL!

[Romulus]

I'm sure he's a fine cop, but color me unimpressed at this shovel brigade approach to sexual sin in the priesthood. So long as the emphasis is on damage control rather than on preventing new cases by enforcing existing strictures against the ordination of homosexuals, these review boards will have no lack of cases to keep them busy, making the bishops appear to be doing something even as they procede with the homosexual infiltration they've done so much to advance. Sexual abuse is now just another cost of doing business. That's one way, even if messy, of mainstreaming homosexuality.