AZ Diocese Head Admits Covering Up Sex Abuse

The head of the Phoenix Diocese has admitted covering up allegations of sex abuse by priests "for decades" and agreed to give up some power in a bid to avoid a possible criminal indictment, the Arizona Republic reported June 2.

Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien apparently signed a five-page agreement saying as much during May, when Maricopa County District Attorney Rick Romley threatened him with a grand jury, the newspaper said, calling the agreement – which is legally binding – one of the most candid admissions by any Roman Catholic bishop that official church policies to date had endangered children and let some priests continue their behaviors long after their sexual activities became known.

The agreement came five months after O'Brien revealed at least fifty priests, former priests, and church workers had been accused of sexual misconduct with Phoenix Diocese children over thirty years, though the bishop didn't identify "many of them" and denied at the time their acts were covered up, the Republic said.

O'Brien reportedly wanted to resign altogether but the Vatican declined, the newspaper said. In the event, the O'Brien agreement would be a stunning reversal of position, considering his public stance almost a year earlier, when he swore at a June 2002 news conference to lead the nation in cleaning up the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandals.

He hadn't changed his position as of a month before he revealed the fifty sexual misconduct allegations, the Republic said. "As long as I am your bishop," he thundered in a letter to the diocese's 89 parishes, "I will not tolerate any kind of sexual molestation or assault - whether with a child or an adult - by clergy or diocesan employees. I will not alter my commitment to you to provide the safest and most secure environment possible for our children."