majority of virginian delegates to go along with ratifying the constitution. without virginia there would not be a constitution. he was an important diplomat in negotiations and secretary of state and all of those other contributions that he made as my father get forgotten because of the significance of his own decision in marbury versus madison. >> sunday night on c-span's q&a. >> up next on c-span2 a conversation with former leaders of the west conference of catholic bishops top protection review boards on child molestation minibike catholic priests. from the city club of chicago we will show you 50 minutes of this discussion. >> thank you, jay. thank you for being here. good afternoon. i'd like to thank the city club members as well for inviting us to discuss the current crisis in the catholic church. when i last had the opportunity

to speak to the city club audience regarding this topic it was march 3, 2004, 14 years ago. to quote from my talk at that time regarding the release of the national review board report i said as a rational, thinking person and a legal professional i have had to recognize the difference between the church and the hierarchy. i hope we all do. while some of our leaders may have failed us others among them have sought to set things right. i believe they are begun to encompass us in convening the unprecedented labor on which i have been serving. it is a deep expression of the real willingness to respond to this crisis in the most effective and systemic way

possible. that was 14 years ago. now i realize i was mistaken in thinking the hierarchy in the catholic church would implement the recommendation in the report of the national review board. it is my pleasure this afternoon to moderate this distinguished panel to assess the current crisis in the catholic church. recurrent sexual abuse scandal the scandals have been drawn into sharper renewed focus in the recent months as a result of a lengthy probe into the handling of a multitude of abuse claims brought against the pennsylvania traffic diocese. in the years following the 2002 formation of the national review board by the united states conference of catholic bishops as an independent, totally independent body of lay men and women whose mission and purpose

was to end the epidemic of sexual abuse on the united states by those in service of the church appeared to begin doing something. however, this new crisis has emerged sadly and tragically. that is why present time of crisis is a crisis of leadership we will discuss two of the problems of the national review board of the united states conference of catholic bishops confronted 16 years ago. in transient and unwillingness of the conference of bishops to grant us the national review board and the authority to investigate the bishops and cardinals. and number two credible evidence in a willful and elaborate cover-up of these undeniable horrifying sexual crimes

committed against underage victims by priests. now it is clear that a code of silence permeated the diocese across the united states. we did recommend an adoption of a whistleblower policy. obviously, it was not adopted by the bishops. present today to discuss these matters is my friend doctor kathleen mcchesney, an esteemed former fbi existed director the former special agent in charge of the chicago division in the first executive director of the office of child and youth protection of the united states conference of catholic bishops and also an author. since 2002 doctor has traveled the world to establish prevention programs aimed at stabbing sexual abuse. she is currently the ceo of management, consulting,

providing strategic services to businesses and not-for-profit organizations. doctor mcchesney, will you please join me. [applause] >> also on the panel today is robert s bennett, a good friend and one of our nation's preeminent trial attorneys. bob has cochaired several american bar association national institute programs and represented former president bill clinton and two former secretaries of the defense, clark gifford and catherine weinberger in high-profile litigation. fellow of the american college of trial lawyers and its various times served as special counsel to the united states senate, committee on ethics. and isn't author also in his latest book in the ring, the

trials about washington lawyer. bob is also the primary author of the national review board report on the crisis of the catholic church in the united states. every 272004. bob, will you please join us. [applause] can you all hear me? bless you. for bob. the national review board conducted a thorough investigation into clerical sexual abuse and reported the number of victims. so why after 14 years are we still learning about grand

juries convening across the country to investigate priests who have abused minors? >> well, it is because the bishops really didn't follow all of our recommendations. in fact, we were prohibited from looking into the bishops. our task was simply to look into the priest and we did not have subpoena power and did not have access to the documents. so, i'm going to be as candid with you as i thank you deserve that in the vatican and its structure really consist -- i can say this with nominal man -- a bunch of old men who don't really want to reform anything

and are very satisfied for the most part with what they have and change is an enemy. women, to them, they are threatened by women and it just goes on and on. recently we learned that cardinal mccarrick was continually elevated into the church even though, even though many of the folks in the vatican were aware of allegations against him regarding, for the most part, young seminarians and also with some minors. i hate to say that because he was a very close dear friend of mine and i loved the man and in

my book many times when i was depressed about the work we were doing and what we're learning here is a bright light. cardinal mccarrick is a humble man and a man who is not taken with the perks of office. i could not have been more wrong. so that is a partial answer. >> bob, i've never known you to give a partial answer. [laughter] we still have lots of questions for you. kathleen, do you have any ideas with regard to why we are still talking about this 14 years later? >> thank you, and. thank you for allowing me to be here this morning. let me say one thing before i

answer your question. there is a possibility that one or more of you in the room have been victims of some type of sexual abuse whether committed by a member of the catholic church or someone you did not know or someone in your family has been a victim. let me first say i'm sorry for what had happened. one in four women women in this country are victims of abuse or sexual and one in six men. it's an important topic and when you why are we it is because it is still prevalent in our society i look at it in the catholic church more costly because offenders are representing god to so many people and two children who don't know the distinction between god and authority figure who is representative is any the church.

the problem continues but i think it is important to note that there has been progress in the catholic church in the sense of diminishing the number of cases that have been occurring over time. during the peak years which were in the 1970s there were over the decade of the 70s there were about 271 on average cases a year. during the past 15 years that number has dropped to about 13 cases a year. one case is dreadful and reprehensible but the fact that those numbers have gone down can, i believe, be attributed to the fact that prevention programs do work in abuse awareness programs do work. >> you know, i have a number of grandchildren who are in catholic schools and i feel very safe about that and i don't think they are at risk like they

used to be. i'd like to think that our board had something to do that but i have to tell you i have the main reason is that the law enforcement authorities are no longer staying away from the church and they are investigating and subpoenaing various places just on pennsylvania and now the it is no longer hands-off and forget separation of church and state, we are coming after you. and that gets their attention. >> i agree with you bob on exactly. sexual abuse is a crime across this country in every state and in many countries across the

world. the first response should be a lot worse but response. the second should come from the organization and as a result of the national review board work on that, captain, isn't it true that every diocese is a good example here in chicago that there is sufficient training background checks and all but who is watching over to make sure all the other dioceses around the country are as convincingly trusted as we would say in chicago the archdiocese did the work. >> when the bishops support the program in 2000 to one of the things that the national review board did and oversaw for the information of an audit process and external audit process to make sure that each of the hundred and 95 dioceses around the country was compliant with having background checks done in

having abuse awareness training done and the audit checks that on an annual basis. there's an annual report about this but in the years that have passed since 2002 is what we call the spotlight years you have seen a tiring or fatiguing of the issue. i would say in the past five-ten years people have not paid attention to those numbers and not paid attention to the fact that there have been audits of the diocese to make certain they are compliant with those procedures and there is better screen and i'm not saying it is good as it should be but better screen for seminarians as well. bob, anything to add to that? >> no, i think that was covered while. >> some people allege the church leadership has been turning a blind eye to the abused epidemic because of a lack of accountability to the laypeople in the church and that is why

last week bob, you appeared at georgetown university and you were amazed at the number of people and some other issues. can you claim to us what happened last week? >> somewhat remarkable and it was 650, 700 people there on this issue and it was amazing to me. i think what happened is the laity is realized that it is at their church. it's not the church of the vatican and those in the vatican. it is our church and i think the vatican and i am using that term in a general sense is becoming almost irrelevant. if your relationship with god that matters. who asks or what politician asks

the church anymore what their moral position is on an issue? i remember when i was in school they did it all the time but now they don't bother because they said we can't even keep your own house in order. and people are pretty fed up and catholics are pretty fed up. my own daughter who are older now what does the church do for them? they are second-class citizens. i think what you see is one of the problems is while the lady feels that way they don't have any place to go. maybe they go to their local priest and even occasionally their local bishop but it doesn't go anyplace. it's like a glass ceiling and i think one of the things that has to be done is, i think, we

should create eight national association of concerned catholics and the head of that or representative of that should have a seat at the table in the vatican. i don't mean they have to be a priest but you have to have access to the folks there because no input is given into the vatican and the people there. you and i have talked about this and are complaints just go up there some place and the cloud or whatever that is. [laughter] and nothing is really done about it. >> you mentioned the vatican and when we're on the national review board we did visit the vatican and why don't you tell the audience some of our experiences going to meet with some of the imperial cardinals. >> it was interesting.

it started out on the wrong foot because being a good little cap boy i knew i cannot get in touch with the vatican and i do not have the phone number. [laughter] so i played by the rules and called our local [inaudible] but of course he would not return the call but one of his current level delegates called me and said i'm sorry mr. bennett but you and the board and don't forget, this is not a organization but a creature of the bishops and it just doesn't feel he feels the subject is in his jurisdiction. and i said i will try to -- child abuse and i did something i did something with ann's

permission and i sent a bunch of faxes to them. and i got admonished by one of the bishops by that and he said you don't send faxes to the vatican. and i said well before you get too upset let me tell you i got faxes back from the cardinal who at the time was at the second most powerful person in rome a year later he became pope benedict. so and bill burley prominent catholic layman who was the head of scripps howard went over and it was pretty remarkable and we met with cardinal for two hours. you can't even get to see the guy and if you did it is five

minutes. you were there for two hours. it wasn't us but he was hearing things and the first time. told him about things and he cannot believe what he was doing. wasn't that your reaction? 's without it was a successful meeting and left the let's go have a good italian dinner and believe it or not cardinal stepped off the curb and missed him by about 6 inches and i could see the headlines of the catholic review board wiped out cardinal [inaudible] ass. >> kathleen, you as a former fbi agent and the protection organized the first audit whereby you hired personally 55

former fbi agents to go into the diocese in the united states. where the bishops all that grateful to see you? [laughter] >> you must remember the audits and the idea of the audits themselves are part of the ship's plan going forward which is set forth in the charter for the protection of young people and i think there were bishops who did not think the day would ever come when there would be audited by lay professionals who are outside the employee of the church. i think there was shock on the part of some of overtime we established a credible process and it's not an investigative process but he complains review process but because of that i think many bishops have come to rely of the auditors in the early years when we come to the

vote with law-enforcement and many who had management experience on and many of you who work or perhaps familiar it doesn't do business in the church is a church in the business belongs to the business world. and that contributes to the confusion and many people don't understand its structure may people still think that in the united states there must be some bishop in charge of all other bishops and that's not the case. all bishops report to rome in the same way that all roads lead to rome. that is how it works in the united states. if there were structural changes then perhaps you could have people who are closer geographically and culturally to

the issues to hold the ships accountable for actions they have taken or not taken. the follow-up to that united states conference of catholic bishops president or i should say cardinal daniel dinardo and cardinal o'malley and cardinal josé gomez were summoned to rome september 13, a few weeks ago and since then i don't think we heard anything from them. it is what happened at the meeting so with regard to structure i know that there was a cry for having an authorized apostolic visit to the united states and it appears that with no word from rome nothing will happen. do you believe that, kathleen

knowing about the instructions of the church? >> i don't have any inside information but i do know the bishops conference, cardinal dinardo, has asked the holy see for apostolic visitation. what that means for those of you who don't understand that is that the holy see would point someone to come to the united states or maybe even someone here who is a cleric and who would lead an investigation into the allegations in this case having to do with cardinal mccarrick and why he was able to be promoted within the church when allegedly different individuals new that he had abused seminarians. so, i think that the process is still underway in terms of appointing someone to do this but another point i like to make about an apostolic visitation, while that is authorized by the

holy see it has to be a partnership to be credible at this point in time and has to be a partnership that includes lay professionals who have law enforcement experience and investigative experience and with some knowledge of the church and others have said that an apostolic visitation is not the right thing to do and it should be just a total external investigation without clerics involved. i don't believe that is something that is being debated at the holy see but i don't know yet. i think we'll have to wait. >> will be interviewed for the job? i do. >> she came in and you said these bishops and cardinals are just a bunch of tough old men and you thank you can handle them? and your response was well she

was number three in the bureau and she said well i deal with tough old men all the time. [laughter] and they had guns. [applause] >> there is one story and i hope catherine doesn't get mad at me but as a board we would go around the country and to have our meetings as a board in each one of the board members diocese and we were ready to go to new york and the member of the board was pamela hey, lawyer in new york and we got word that cardinal egan who was actually he would like to say he's from chicago but he is from old park. i don't want the fbi agent in a skirt coming to new york. that is the kind of pushback we got. i know kathleen as she went

around to investigate not all the diocese cooperate. is that right? >> first let me finish. i did not go to new york and it didn't matter. and i probably wore a skirt, to. [laughter] there were or a bishop who declined to take part in the audits for some years and that was the bishop of lincoln, nebraska who has since been replaced and dissipating in the audits. and a real interest in point is because they were his brother bishops were participating in the pacu decline -- there were no consequence whatsoever. i was wondering where the laypeople were in the diocese that were insisting that they have the external audit. if there is a point i think we all wanted to make by a speedier today it is first of all to thank all of you as laypersons

for being interested in hopefully activists on these issues. in making certain that your respective bishops or archbishops or cardinals, whatever they might be, as well as provincials of the religious committees because the third of the priests are religious communities and not necessarily associated with diocese. what we would hope is that you would continue to make your voices heard about things that are going that as you don't understand or you think need to be corrected within the church. whatever the issue may be and this is a much broader this is the most important thing right now. >> bob, we've been talking and

things that need to be changed in the church and even though the bishops didn't necessarily pay attention to our recommendations about our ability on their behalf what you think needs to what needs to be changed in the church? >> this is where i get close to being asked mitigated. [laughter] let me make one point. our investigation was very serious and at the time i was at wayne's law firm and i got the premonition of wayne and others to do it right and at the end of the day we wrote off $2 million in time because of the use of various broad brilliant young lawyers and not so young lawyers

and i only mentioned that number because wade and his partners commitment even though many were jewish. this was serious and a serious investigation. i've been thinking about these issues for a long time and especially the last 20 years. here is what i think. to get very practical and believe me, i am not naïve. i have no believe that in my lifetime or lifetime after this will be done but if you want to make this a healthy church solve many of the problems, here's what i recommend. i am convinced that celibacy should be voluntary. to some, celibacy is a great

gift. to others, it's an albatross that leads priests into heavy drinking, womanizing et cetera and we don't even talk about womanizing anymore but this is all about power and many priests that we came across, i came across in the last 20 years who will counsel women or have trouble in their marriage and wind up trying to buy them. i think celibacy has got to be voluntary. i think we should have married priests, if they choose. we have priests in the church that are married and no episcopalian priest who mary and i'm sure there are others. yes, i know there will be other problems, divorces and things but those problems are nothing compared to what we have. third, i think we should have

women priests. there's no good reason to have no women priests. [applause] i have discovered in our investigation and elsewhere some of the guns are the best people we have in our church. [applause] can you imagine a woman priest sitting with a male priest at breakfast and josé i think i will send jones to idaho and maybe he will stop this abusing. it would not happen, it would not happen. as i said earlier i think that you need to have a late position in the vatican with some kind of authority so they have access. think about it.

in this day and it age women can't be priests -- my wife was a president of the support. aging religion and these great men in the vatican tweeted nuns like garbage. those are my views and for very practical solutions but, you know, the chance of this happening is negligible. if you have a priest who is at all reform minded they will never get up to the real power base because people who get up there are the identical people who are there already and they don't want done bishops or young priests to rock the vote. that is just the fact of the matter. you can talk around that but that is the way it is. that is based on my views of over 20 years.

>> kathleen, do you believe that this movement in the church, those were against pope francis and those who are more conservative, shall we say, trying to put blame on homosexual priests? our report shows otherwise, is that not true? >> there are a couple of questions in the question there and one has to do with our people putting certain agendas gay or anti- gay and are they finding each other over the issue of sex abuse. i think that, yes they are. it's a sad thing that you have or the appearance of people on both sides fighting each other

about the most important thing which is affecting children. that gets lost by the wayside when they're talking about whose ideology is the most important and other people like pope francis for they like his appointments with a don't like his appointments. none of that matters if you are not focused on the child. >> that is the elephant in the room. we recommended further study on the subject of homosexuality. nobody knows precisely but i've heard this to six that probably 30-50% or more of the priests have homosexual tendencies. certainly most of the cases involved homosexual conduct so you can't just wish it away but

there's a big difference between a man who has a tendency and one who acts on it. i think it would be terrible for the church to get rid of men simply have a homosexual tendencies. these young priests of a homosexual orientation, do not get training or how to cope with it and i told them in high school take a cold chart. you can't do that. but this requires a lot of attention and a lot of attention but by the same token heterosexual men who go in you have to be sure that they what their tendencies are and not acting out with women so you have to be careful and one of the things with this letter

looks to me like there may be an effort to sort of read the church of homosexual oriented men which i think would not be good for the church. >> do believe the pope need to take more active leadership role here in the united states? it seems like there's some sort of disconnect between what the laypeople have been talking about and what the hierarchy has been talking about and the inactive to some degree about listening to the laypeople? kathleen? >> one of the problems with being the leader of the largest christian organization in the world is that you only have so many moments in the day. from those of us in the united states that understand organization and structures the

person in charge at the top is in the person that will get a lot of things done. here in the united states in some decentralization of power within the church would be able to handle the issues or nimbly and more effectively so to say it would be better if the pope were involved in the issues, i don't think that's the answer. the answer is something here in the united states where you have the leadership back in get things done and hold people accountable within the church within the united states. just to give you an example there are a number of offenders over the years who have been identified, clergy who have abused minors or vulnerable adults. a number of these people were proposed [inaudible]. there are literal hundreds of those cases awaiting the judicial decision at the holy

see about whether to lay aside these men. that should not be. those cases should be completed very quickly because there is evidence some of these people have gone to jail and so forth. if you had a system where you could adjudicate here in the united states more quickly and then say the work of the folks around in various [inaudible] for appeals only you could get those process done and get better account ability and you would not have these people who are still lingering in the priesthood. bob? >> i agree with that. >> okay. i think that we pretty much said what we were planning on saying unless there is some final comments before we take questions. okay. i can't believe it's only one question here.

>> i forgot to acknowledge mary ellen. where are you? i apologize. [applause] don't be shy just because c-span is watching. [laughter] >> doctor shannon. if you want to stand and ask your question. >> my handwriting is -- >> i didn't want to say that but i thought it was some prescription for me. >> my question relates to the study in 2000 by [inaudible] i've got a couple of questions. one is the panel thanks that a study that should be periodically redone but the second question is and i think we got to this with the opening

but it was done by [inaudible] a report done by the diocese and wonder if you could contrast that and what was unearthed with subpoena power. >> well -- it was a two-part question. should the report that was issued by the national review board be reviewed and continually updated and the other was what was the issue with regard to the grand jury in pennsylvania and their subpoena power. what was the difference because kevin, you can answer that little better but you could start and we can all come in on that. >> i think i understood the question differently. doctor, yes about the study in 2002 that was commissioned by the bishops for the john jay study and that was separate from

the national review board report in the john jay study the john jay college of criminal justice, not catholic institute but a reputable research institution surveyed all the diocese in the country to find out what the nature and scope of the problem of abuse was. and should there be a new study in that regard but i don't think there needs to be a new study and there is a process in place by which the research group from georgetown university collect that data every year and puts it in and annual reports. what is important to note is that a lot of people don't know that. as often as there is press releases and so forth those numbers have been added to every year since 2004 when the report came out. that's a different issue than

being transparent and disclosing the names of offenders. that is something that the sport in my office that we reprimanded back in 2002 that if you're going to be transparent you need to let people know who those offenders are. here in the archdiocese of chicago names were released. in other places around the country names have been released but is not universal and it's absolutely something that needs to be done so that victims can heal and so that other people are not reported will be able to know that there are not alone. knowing that you are not alone go so far in helping that person who has been victimized to heal. >> bob? >> no. >> okay. there are a number of questions and why the archdiocese of

chicago is not on the panel and there was no one other than myself and two other members so this was about the national review board and not about what any archdiocese in the country has done or not done. >> we have asked the cardinal five or six times and no response. he is always welcome. >> was your question answered? okay. from kate, short of a field, how can lady take over and force of the restructuring of the church. the power of the purse -- >> no, i don't think but i do think if we were able to have a seat at the table at the vatican we might be able to influence

some of the decisions and also i think if the lady realizes it's their church perhaps those in the vatican will realize that if they don't get on the program it will become more and more irrelevant and remote. >> okay. kate o'malley, she's with kate ko strategies. the choice cap have is to stay and fight for the church or find another christian church if we stay, what realistically can we do to reform the catholic church so we see that the issue is addressed in our lifetime? >> that's similar to the last question in terms of how the

laity can move forward. like i said before, using your voice, letting your bishops and cardinals and provincials no how you feel and come forward with concrete suggestions like bob has about testing on a seat at the table. you have congregations like congregation for bishop or clergy in the holy sea. if they had lay advisory boards, councils, who could listen to their issues and provide a perspective from the laity that would be at least a small step towards fundamental structural changes. >> did you see that if i remember correctly some of the wealthiest contributors to the church was holding --

>> i have seen some checks with nothing in it. >> that is attending a forum where this kind of discussion can be talked about and bob talked about the other evening last week where he was at georgetown with her was over 600 people talking about the issue as lay people what they should do. i was at old saint patrick's last night with 400 people talking about this issue and that is exactly what we should be doing. having a conversation about this issue and being engaged in our church as lay people and insisting that our parishes and dioceses across the country have these conversations and include the bishop and include the

cardinal so they are thinking. if you're talking about them, you can't possibly know what is going on. i also like to talk about -- the one thing i do want to point out to you is everybody is angry. bob, you said the same thing. kathy i know you go around the world and talk to people and have been discussing this for the last 15 years in countries all over the world. people want to be catholic. they want to be part of the church and in your words to them i can probably quote but i won't. i will let you do it. >> back in 2002, again we call this the spotlight years for those who have seen the movie a new that is when the catholic -- >> you can see the last two