THOMAS WHISENAND / Concord Monitor New Hampshire Attorney general Kelly Ayotte held a press conference announcing the results of the state's audit of the Catholic Arch Diocese of Manchester yesterday afternoon in Concord. Zoom Purchase Photos Online

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester has failed to ensure that priests, employees and volunteers who work with children have passed criminal background checks or attended training aimed at preventing and identifying abuse, a state audit of the church revealed.

The audit, released yesterday, identified flaws in the Catholic Church's attempt to live up to the terms of the agreement it reached with the state in 2002, a deal that enabled the church to avoid criminal charges of child endangerment despite decades of protecting abusive priests in its handling of sexual-abuse allegations.

The church has taken some important steps to protect children in the three-plus years since the agreement, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte said. But the deficiencies named in the audit - which was delayed nearly a year-and-a-half by a protest from the diocese over the terms and cost - must be addressed immediately. The church has 30 days to come up with a plan to fix the problems or risk facing legal action from the state, said Ayotte, who blamed Bishop John McCormack's administration.

"The fundamental problem appears to be a failure to take responsibility at the top of the diocese," said Ayotte, who submitted the inch-thick audit report to the church earlier this week with a letter listing the specific findings that need to be addressed.

Although Ayotte's five-page letter contained just one paragraph about "commendable steps" the diocese had taken, the church's top official for clergy conduct focused on that line. The Rev. Edward Arsenault mentioned the "commendation" repeatedly during a press conference held by the diocese after the release of the audit. He also prepared an immediate letter to Ayotte saluting her for recognizing "the commitment the Catholic Church in New Hampshire has made to the protection of children and young people."

Arsenault downplayed the deficiencies found by the audit as "administrative details" that the church is trying to address. He also expressed skepticism about the competence of the audit, performed by the international auditing and accounting firm KPMG.

"The KPMG report has a lot of inaccuracies in it," said Arsenault, who is responsible for overseeing the diocese's training and screening programs as McCormack's delegate for ministerial conduct.

For example, Arsenault cited a portion of the report that referred to his role as "advisory."

"That is neither true, nor is it our belief, nor has it ever been. It's a conclusion that was derived by the auditors based on their interview of me," Arsenault said. He called it one of a series of mistakes that cast the whole report in doubt.

Regardless of how Arsenault's role was described, the audit was clear in its assessment of the administration. As part of its December 2002 agreement with the state, the church was supposed to perform criminal background checks on all clergy, employees and volunteers who interact with children. The church also agreed to give "Protecting God's Children"seminars to train the same individuals on how to recognize, prevent and report cases of child sexual abuse.

KPMG found that McCormack's office delegated those roles to the local parishes, schools and youth camps without setting up a method for tracking whether the criminal background checks were performed. The audit recognized that 9,000 people have completed the "Protecting God's Children" training. But the church did not know how many employees or volunteers missed that training or how many people would potentially require it.

Part of the background check involves retrieving a criminal-records report that requires the consent of the person in question. Checking to see if someone is a sex offender is a quick process that anyone with internet access can perform, Ayotte said. Yet in one sample parish studied in the audit, only 16 percent of employees and volunteers who work with children had been checked.

"Something as basic and simple as checking a sex offender registry should be done in every case, without exception," Ayotte said. "To me, that's a basic 101 of working with children."

Arsenault was unable to explain the lack of registry checks. "Because we haven't completed it. That's all I'm going to say," he said. "I'm committed to full compliance. We are working at that."

Arsenault stressed that the audit found no cases where children have been harmed since the agreement was signed. He said the diocese is working to address the deficiencies and recently hired a full-time compliance coordinator to serve as liaison between the bishop and the 117 parishes, 25 diocesan schools and two summer camps in the diocese, a region that covers all of New Hampshire and serves more than 310,000 registered Catholics.

Single page