c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Two years ago, Anne Burke was a self-admitted “passive Catholic” who lived in relative obscurity, save for her job as a justice on the Illinois Court of Appeals and wife of a Chicago alderman.

But then she got a phone call from a Catholic bishop downstate who asked her to serve on an advisory lay board to monitor the church’s response to the clergy sex abuse scandal.

Looking back, if she had known what the position would entail _ hundreds of hours of meetings, juggling court schedules _ she says she may not have taken it. Still, important lessons were learned.

“I see now that we can no longer be passive Catholics and still remain good Catholics,” she said. “We have to be involved in the church.”

After two years as vice chairman, and later chairman, of the church’s National Review Board, Burke will attend her last meeting Monday (June 28) in San Bernardino, Calif.

Also leaving with Burke are the outspoken Washington attorney Bob Bennett, former Clinton chief of staff Leon Panetta and William Burleigh, chairman of the board at the E.W. Scripps newspaper company.

All four members said their departures were already scheduled as part of a staggered board rotation _ although several said they need to get back to their day jobs. Bennett’s firm has committed more than 3,000 billable hours to the board, all of it pro bono.

Replacements for the four departing members have yet to be named.

While all four expressed confidence that the church has turned a corner in the abuse scandal, they are also concerned that without continued vigilance the church runs the risk of returning to the days of cover-up, denial and secrecy.

“There’s still a lot of anger and mistrust, and the bishops have to continue to extend their hand to create even more credibility,” Burleigh said. “It would be a great mistake for them to think the job is over.”

Burke, Bennett, Burleigh and Panetta were appointed to the 12-member review board to oversee the implementation of sex abuse reforms adopted in June 2002. Their first chairman, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, resigned after comparing some bishops’ stalling tactics to members of the Mafia.

In the two years since, the board has been the public face of lay pressure to make sure the scandal that claimed 10,667 victims and involved 4,392 priests does not repeat itself.

The board’s mince-no-words report issued last February found evidence of progress, but was unflinching in its criticism of church leaders who ignored or tried to hide the problem.

“The inaction of those bishops who failed to protect their people from predators was … grievously sinful,” the board said in its 145-page report. “Somehow, the `smoke of Satan’ was allowed to enter the church, and as a result, the church itself has been deeply wounded.”

Bennett, who served as former President Clinton’s lawyer during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, said those wounds have yet to heal, and trust is still broken.

“I don’t think it’s rebuilt yet, and it’s very much in limbo,” he said. “The laity is watching and waiting to see what the bishops do.”

Since the February report, the board has pushed for a second round of audits to measure compliance; last year’s investigation found that 90 percent of dioceses have complied with the new rules. Bishops approved a second round on June 15.

When conservative bishops, led by Cardinals Edward Egan of New York and Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, tried to put the brakes on a second round, Burke accused the bishops of trying to return to “business as usual.”

The response from some bishops was typical of the arm’s-length relationship the board has had with the hierarchy.

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver told Burke, “Your language is designed to offend and contains implicit threats that are, to put it mildly, inappropriate for anyone of your professional stature.”

And Archbishop Henry Mansell of Hartford, Conn., worried that the board appeared “to be expanding their competence, responsibilities, activities and studies in a dynamic of autonomy.”

Relations between the independent-minded board and the bishops have been at times frosty, and cordial at best.

“It was a one-way street,” Burleigh said. “There was silence, and then this undertow of criticism, but we’re big boys and girls and we all expected it from just about every corner. And we’ve gotten it.”

Now that the board has issued its report _ and a larger, more in-depth study by independent researchers is still years away _ victims’ advocates and some board members say the bishops cannot afford to wish the problem away.

Panetta, who heads a center at California State University to encourage young people to enter public service, said he saw the same unfortunate result with scandal too many times during his life in Congress and the White House.

“People hope that it will go away by itself, that the attention span of the American people is limited, and that hopefully everyone can get back to business as usual,” he said. “There is a moral responsibility, and a legal responsibility, to ensure that steps are taken to protect children.”

AMB/PH END ECKSTROM