Lagging Arthur Andersen on ethics
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Staff, 6/19/2002
TO THINK that Arthur Andersen beat the Catholic Church to
justice. Even if the more accurate thought is that some
conniving accountants were beaten into justice more quickly than
pathological bishops, it is not a good weekend when fairness and
closure were found more clearly in the rows of federal district
court than in the pews of the church.
Last Saturday, a federal jury convicted Andersen of obstruction of
justice for altering documents in the investigation of Enron. That
same day, the nation's Catholic bishops ended their conference in
Dallas. The conference was dominated by the clergy child sexual
abuse scandal. The bishops adopted a policy where priests past
and present who ever sexually molested a child would be removed
from service.
Standing up to applaud the new policy was Boston's Cardinal
Bernard Law. Law, whose local shuffling of abusive priests from
parish to parish mushroomed into a national scandal, said, ''We
accomplished something significant.''
What the bishops accomplished seems significantly less next to
what happened to Andersen.
Andersen admitted to abusing pieces of paper in January. By
March, with the criminal indictment handed down and clients
fleeing, the global chief executive of Arthur Andersen, Joseph
Berardino, resigned. Berardino said: ''I have concluded that my
continuing as worldwide CEO could become an impediment ... to
save the US firm. While my nature is to keep fighting and protect
our clients, the fact is that the improper shredding of documents
took place on my watch - and I believe it is now in the best
interests of the firm for me to step down.''
Berardino said he was moved to resign because ''on a personal
level, I've been trained by my parents and by Jesuits who taught
me in college that the greatest thing you can do is do something
for someone else. That's all I'm thinking about right now. Someday
maybe I'll think about myself.''
Law's coddling of abusive priests exploded on him in January. He
admitted mistakes but refused to resign. Ignoring the fact that
the Catholic Church in the United States collects twice as much
in parish donations as Arthur Andersen collected last year in
revenues - $8.2 billion to $3.97 billion - and ignoring the church's
deep reach into political issues, Law said, ''It's important to
remember that a bishop is not a corporate executive, is not a
politician.'' Law said, ''I want the archdiocese to become a model
for how this issue should be handled.''
Two weeks after Berardino resigned at Andersen, Law continued
to be a model for mishandling his scandal. That was when his
direct role was exposed in promoting the Rev. Paul Shanley, who
had three decades of accusations of molestation to his name.
In America, we take money so seriously that when Andersen went
to trial, business prognosticators predicted that no matter what
the verdict, public trust in the company was mortally wounded.
After the verdict, Andersen, despite nearly 90 years counting the
money of the Fortune 500, declared itself dead.
The abuse of children within their walls has yet to spark concern
by the bishops for their clerical mortality. Sure, they took
testimony from victims at their conference. Given the prior stone
walls erected by too many bishops, any public recognition of
victims' pain was worthwhile.
But the real deal of the conference was for the bishops to look
like they were lowering the bridge over the moat while heaping
more stones and mortar on the wall. They say they will remove
abusive priests, but they made no policy to remove bishops or
cardinals who reassign abusive priests. It was of little wonder
then that Law, in a news photograph, was on his feet ahead of
almost all the other bishops around him to applaud the policy.
''We're holding ourselves accountable ... accountable to one
another,'' Law said. Law was applauding because once more he
knew he had escaped accountability.
Berardino said he resigned because he was a fatal impediment to
Andersen restoring its credibility. Even though one would think
that abused children are more important than abused records,
Law still refuses to see his shuffling of priests, and his deploying
of lawyers to fight the victims brave enough to bring charges, as
an impediment to the Catholic Church restoring its credibility.
With the Boston Archdiocese losing so much in contributions that
it faces program cuts of up to 40 percent, it is obvious how much
of an impediment Law has become. Having hurt children once by
ignoring abuse, he is about to hurt them again with the loss of
services. Whatever Jesuit teachings motivated Berardino to
resign have been lost on Law. Law has so put himself above the
fortunes of the church he is willing to continue to cost it a
fortune.
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.
This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 6/19/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. |
