What Should Catholic Church Do With Priests Who Sexually Abuse Children?
HARRIS: Welcome back to TALKBACK LIVE. Leon Harris here with my partner, Daryn Kagan. Now, still reeling from the priest sex abuse scandal, the Catholic Diocese of San Jose is taking what some might consider to be an outrageous step to keep things out in the open. Literally. Let's watch this report now from affiliate station KRON in San Francisco.</s>YSABEL DURON, KRON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In order to restore a sense of security and safety, the Diocese of San Jose is changing the way people go to concession. Bishop Patrick McGrath has ordered all 52 Catholic parishes in the diocese to install windows in confessionals to reduce the chances of sexual misconduct occurring. St. Thomas of Canterbury Church has already done it, and the basilica itself no longer takes confession behind a closed door.</s>FATHER JOSE RUBIO, 5 WOUNDS CATHOLIC CHURCH: And then as a temporary adaptation, they put this curtain, and the priest sits on this side of the curtain, the penitent kneels there and then that door is left open, so that anybody walking by can see.</s>DURON: Catholics leaving the basilica question the policy's impact, but they appreciate the effort.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's good to see that, you know, the church is listening and is able to make changes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would feel comfortable, because I have been to face-to-face confession, which is, you know...</s>DURON (on camera): So it's not disturbing to see this change?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To have it out in the public, even as they are not hearing it, they are still seeing you, I don't know.</s>DURON (voice-over): Father Jose Rubio recently replaced another priest at 5 Wounds Portuguese Church, who faced sexual abuse allegations, causing division in that parish. Until 5 Wounds gets its glass windows, confessions are made in the openness of the church pew, which is disturbing to some. But Father Rubio says in the long term, the change will protect both parishioners and priests.</s>RUBIO: I don't think we were surprised. I think we are agreeing to it. We think it's a good idea given the circumstances. We think it's the right thing to do.</s>DURON: Ysabel Duron, KRON 4 News.</s>KAGAN: So do you think this is a good idea? We want to hear from you on this. You can call us at 1-800-310-4CNN, or e-mail us, talkback@cnn.com. And here to talk about see-through confessionals is Louis Giovino, communications director with the Catholic League, and Paul Steidler, he's spokesman for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. That group is also known as SNAP. Gentlemen, good afternoon, and thanks for joining us.</s>PAUL STEIDLER, SNAP: Good afternoon.</s>LOUIS GIOVINO, COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, CATHOLIC LEAGUE: Good to be here.</s>KAGAN: Let's go ahead and start with you, Paul. Do you think this is a good idea? Is this really going to help things?</s>STEIDLER: No, we feel it's a meaningless gesture. Most priest pedophiles will groom their victims for months or even years before making their first physical move on a child, and something like this is not going to prevent that from happening. It's not going to prevent determined pedophiles from getting alone with kids in settings outside the church, and in fact, it might even be counter-productive, because it gives a false sense of security out there. What would be much more meaningful would be for the church to aggressively throw out all priests who commit these offenses and to support mandatory laws in all 50 states that there be reporting of any child abuse, suspicions or occurrences that occur. Right now, it's just a very voluntary system that is in place for the bishops and the diocese across the country.</s>KAGAN: We're going to get to that system in just a moment, but first let's bring Louis in and let's have you comment here on these open confessionals. How do you think this is actually going to help?</s>GIOVINO: Well, we can understand the intention of the bishop here, but we think that it's a little ill advised, because in a case of a confessional, there haven't been too many cases of where abuse has occurred in a confessional.</s>KAGAN: That was the first thing that I thought of. I mean, that's not where the problem is happening. They're kind of missing the point here.</s>GIOVINO: We want to be looking for the bishops to ensure that any time you go into a confessional, this priest is going to be trustworthy, and that any person who has any problems with abuse is going to be out and away from parishioners. It seems to -- the problem here is that it seems to give the idea that all priests are dangerous and we need some type of safeguard against them, and that's unfortunate. I also think it's going to be a problem with people may not be wanting to go like this with the window. Confession is a very private affair, and something like this may turn people away.</s>HARRIS: That's a good point. Let's bring that point up with one of our audience members. Ed, you are Catholic, you said earlier, during the break?</s>ED: No, sir, I didn't say I was Catholic.</s>HARRIS: Oh, I'm sorry.</s>ED: ... they asked me if I had an opinion.</s>HARRIS: Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were...</s>KAGAN: That's why we like you here, Ed.</s>HARRIS: I'm sorry, we didn't mean to try to convert you here, but I thought</s>ED: Couldn't happen. My reaction is that it is just a knee-jerk reaction to something that has been going on in the Catholic Church for far too long. And I wonder about the amount of money that is going to be spent in San Jose for something that is not going to do any good. It's not going to have any impact.</s>HARRIS: Look, in fact, can we get one of the ladies that we have in the audience here with us? Chris, can you get over there to Sue.</s>SUE: Yes, I come from England, and ages ago, 20 years ago, my son was at a British public school, which is in the States -- they are really private schools, and they had Catholic priests there, and it was well known that the Catholic priest was taking all little boys into the swimming pool to make them strip at night. And I know that child abuse has been going on in the Catholic Church for perhaps centuries, and I think probably they ought to look for Rome for guidance to see what, you know, what should be done worldwide. It's not just something that is happening in this country. It's worldwide.</s>HARRIS: Just a second...</s>STEIDLER: It is indeed a worldwide problem. The difficulty is, though, that the Vatican has been even less responsive to this problem than the bishops here in the United States. There are also epidemics of this abuse going on in Ireland, Poland and other countries that are heavily Catholic.</s>GIOVINO: This is the bishops' prerogative. This is -- the bishops are supposed to be the ones in charge of their priests. The Vatican has general oversight. They have put it in a lot of safeguards at the beginning of this year to make sure that there aren't any more of these cover-ups. But this is -- you know, Bishop McGrath in San Jose, this is his prerogative to do what he's doing. It's up to them locally to take care of this, and we have seen it already with the June meeting of the American bishops that they are putting in -- putting in policies to take care of this.</s>STEIDLER: We'll see in the long run if they actually do put in these policies to take care of this. We have...</s>GIOVINO: They're already doing this.</s>STEIDLER: ... already found out that 10 diocese are violating the Dallas charter that was put forward back in June, and in the case of Bishop McGrath, if he wants to do something productive to stop child abuse in his diocese, what he ought to do is visit the parishes where a former priest who molested 25 kids served at. We had a press conference out there last week, talking about this issue...</s>KAGAN: I'm just going to jump in here for a second. We have just a minute left, and we have Eileen who wants to talk about this specific issues of the windows and the open confessionals.</s>EILEEN: I'm a Catholic, and face-to-face, as one gentlemen mentioned, has been around for at least 20 years that I know of. It's always been optional. You can go face-to-face, or you can go into the little confessional. My point is, I don't understand the windows, because these confessionals that I'm used to, you go in one door, the priest goes in the other. I don't see how the priest could get through the little window to abuse a child, so to me that's a safer place, behind those closed doors, than maybe out in the open. The other thing is, I mean, some people like their privacy, as they were mentioning. Who wants to let everybody in the church know that you are going to confession?</s>HARRIS: You know, and not just that. We were talking about this before we got on the air, but we were wondering what would it feel like if you were in a confessional and you looked out and saw someone you knew, or if you were outside waiting for your turn and you saw someone you knew in there. That's the sort of privacy issue that you would think that the priests would be more sensitive too.</s>KAGAN: Or even worse, we were actually having a moment of humor, what if a fellow parishioner read lips?</s>HARRIS: Exactly. That could be really scary.</s>STEIDLER: The bottom line is, it is going to safeguard children, and that's the scary issue.</s>HARRIS: All right.</s>KAGAN: On a more serious and more important note. Our discussion is going to continue. Other points still ahead. And we will want to hear from you at home. Right now, we take a quick break.