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	Richmond Diocese Makes Prevention Its Policy By Steven G. Vegh The Virginian-Pilot [Norfolk VA] March 7, 2005 NORFOLK — On a Saturday morning when she might otherwise be shuttling her children to sports practice, Joanne Wagner was in a Catholic parish hall, one among three dozen church volunteers assembled to watch a videotape of child molesters’ confessions and abuse victims’ anguished stories. It was ugly, intense – and also mandatory under the Diocese of Richmond’s new and permanent initiative for teaching parish volunteers how to detect and prevent child sexual abuse. By June, the diocese expects to have channel ed 10,000 parishioners through "Protecting God’s Children," a three-hour workshop required for adults whose volunteerism involves contact with children. Individuals who refuse the training will not be allowed to work with children unless a second, trained adult is also present, said Maryjane Fuller, the assistant human resources director for the diocese. After completing the workshop, volunteers are required to visit an abuse prevention Web site each month for updates and new information. The diocese, which already required background checks for volunteers and staff, has also cycled clergy and employees through the workshop. The newly mandated training "reaches about as far as you possibly could," said the Rev. Thomas F. Shreve , the diocese’s vicar general. "It is a new day." The workshops are the diocese’s latest response to the stunning revelations in 2002 that the Catholic hierarchy had covered up scores of cases of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests around the country. In the Richmond Diocese, which includes South Hampton Roads, five priests have resigned or been expelled from the ministry in connection with child abuse accusations since the summer of 2002 . Two were convicted on criminal charges prompted by victims’ accusations. Programs designed to raise awareness about child sexual abuse have been required for all dioceses since 2002 as part of a package of guidelines adopted by the U.S. Catholic bishops to prevent and respond to abuse. Although the abuse crisis prompted the new training for volunteers, Shreve said the workshops’ aim is to heighten parishioners’ awareness of the potential for abuse in everyday, non-church settings such as schools and neighborhoods. "Sex abuse is not just a church problem, it’s a society problem," he said. The program used by the diocese was developed in the late 1990s by The National Catholic Risk Retention Group Inc., an insurance group within the Catholic Church. More than 80 of the approximately 195 dioceses in the United States use the program. By embracing "Protecting God’s Children," the Richmond Diocese has recast itself as an abuse prevention leader in Virginia’s faith community, where policies and practices vary widely among denominations. For example, there is no policy requiring abuse prevention training within the Virginia Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, said Bishop James F. Mauney , who oversees about 160 congregations. Conversely, the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church requires each of its approximately 1,200 congregations to have a child protection policy. Boilerplate provisions include screening for volunteers, a minimum of two unrelated adults in any setting involving children, and a six-month record of involvement in the congregation as a condition for working with children. The Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia plans to extend preventive training to Sunday school teachers and occasional volunteers. It already requires training and background screening for parish employees and volunteer leaders, said the Rev. Irwin M. Lewis Jr., a diocesan executive. The Presbyterian Church U.S.A. does not require abuse prevention training for church volunteers, but congregations are "strongly urged" to do so, said Pat Hendrix , a sexual misconduct ombudsman for the denomination. Hendrix said churches also are encouraged to do background checks on volunteers. Imposing conditions like screening and workshops can sometimes sour volunteers’ zeal, acknowledged Deacon Darrell Wentworth , who led the recent abuse workshop attended by Wagner at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Norfolk. "Eighty percent of the people come in with a bad attitude because you’re forced to do it," he said of the workshops. "Ninety-nine percent walk out saying, 'Wow, I can understand why the church is doing this.’" Ernest and confident, Wentworth told the volunteers that abuse was neither unique to the Catholic Church nor an indictment of Catholic teachings. He then played two training videos featuring not just victims, but two abusers – mild-mannered men who described their methodical tactics for snaring children and duping parents who were friends or neighbors. The testimony underscored the warning signs of potential abuse: individuals who prefer being with children instead of adult peers ; frequent or expensive gifts from an adult to a child ; adults who incessantly touch, tickle or wrestle with kids ; adults who tell children dirty jokes or give children pornography ; adults who try to be alone with a child, out of view of other adults. "One of the things I did to get kids to trust me was to just be their buddy," one molester said on the video. "Talk to them in such a way that they thought I was just another kid." The gathered volunteers, men and women, watched the screen with a steady gaze and little fidgeting. With the last tape on rewind, Wentworth reviewed the defenses against abuse: screening volunteers; having windows on classroom doors; parents who take time to talk and listen to their children; investigating suspicious behavior; monitoring all children. In practice, Wentworth said, parents of each parish should decide together the rules guiding adult-child relations. "Build the wall between the perpetrators on one side, and your kids on the other," he said. "We cannot be obsessive about this, but protecting children has got to be in our heart." After the workshop, several participants called the tutorial worthwhile, if not necessarily eye-opening on every point. Much of it was familiar to Wagner, a former special-education teacher, mother of three and substitute Sunday school instructor at St. Gregory the Great in Virginia Beach. Nonetheless, the abusers’ testimony – "just hearing how calculating they are" – was riveting, she said. "Personally, I didn’t really get too much out of the session," said Everett Laney , a civilian Navy worker who sometimes helps his wife when she teaches Sunday school at Blessed Sacrament. Most adults, he said, should already "know the rules" of appropriate behavior toward children. Nonetheless, he said, child abuse "is a big problem, and the church has to do something to show people, the public, that they’re really interested in giving folks an education on things to be careful about." Juanita Dillard , a volunteer at Blessed Sacrament who also teaches at Bishop Sullivan High School in Virginia Beach, rued the need to screen and prep church volunteers. But, she said, "we know the wolf may be in sheep’s clothing."
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