Las Vegas Catholic officials struggle with church image

Stacy J. Willis

Friday, April 5, 2002 | 5:52 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

Three months ago if a reporter called Bishop Joseph Pepe's office at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas, Pepe would either pick up the phone, return the call, have his vicar general take the call or make an appointment for a personal interview.

Today a call to the bishop gets referred to Sig Rogich's public relations firm.

Ask The Rogich Communications Group's representative for an interview with Pepe and the answer is, politely, no.

Ask for an interview with Vicar General Bob Stoekig, the answer is no. Ask for an interview with anyone at the diocese, or to talk with parish priests, or for a copy of the diocese's sexual misconduct policy -- no, no, no.

Caught up in what has become a nationwide spate of sexual abuse allegations against priests -- and facing local charges of its own -- the Diocese of Las Vegas has turned to attorneys and PR specialists to communicate with the public.

It's indicative of a dilemma for Catholic leaders nationwide: How do they handle this unprecedented public relations nightmare while still fulfilling the mission of the church? Can an institution whose business is truth and ethics, an institution that espouses honesty and requires confession, retreat behind a stable of image professionals?

"(Church officials) obviously do what they do with legal and other professional consultation," said Thomas Plante, associate professor of psychology at the Jesuit Santa Clara University in California.

"But I do think the silence or defensive manner makes things worse in the eyes of victims, their families and perhaps the public at large," said Plante, whose research focuses on sexual abuse by priests.

"Since the church has had a history of behaving in a defensive manner and circling the wagons on this issue many have felt that they were more interested in protecting abusive priests, the church hierarchy, and their finances than protecting victims, their families and potential victims," Plante said.

Rogich was retained by the law firm Beckley Singleton, which is defending the diocese in a lawsuit filed in March by the families of six Henderson boys who allege that the Rev. Mark Roberts sexually abused them at St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church. Pepe and his predecessor, Bishop Daniel Walsh, are also defendants in the suit.

Rogich representative Rachel Wilkie would not comment on the specifics of the PR plan for the diocese, but said: "They've said what they are going to say for now."

What the diocese has said is limited to a general, written statement by Pepe about "stories of sexual abuse of children by some priests throughout the country."

Stoekig granted a one-time round of telephone calls to news reporters last month -- limiting discussion to the national issue.

Responding to Sun inquiries on Friday, Wilkie sent a faxed statement to the newspaper.

In that statement, Stoekig says the diocese is "'serving its parishioners and is working in a forthright manner in its effort to continue to cooperate fully with authorities.

"The Diocese wants the Catholic community to know that we have and will continue to cooperate fully with the authorities and are doing everything we can to ensure that those that have been affected by allegations are receiving the care they need."

Priests in Las Vegas have been asked by diocese officials not to comment on any local sexual abuse policies or related issues.

Some, however, such as the Rev. Bart Hutcherson at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Newman Center, chose to address sexual abuse by priests in a general way in Easter-weekend homilies.

"You can't ignore what is going on in people's lives," Hutcherson said. "However, I also have a responsibility to the diocese and my brother priests and I'm not free to say anything I want to ...

"We are all affected by this. There are hurting people who are asking, 'How do I incorporate this with what I've been taught about the Church?' For some people, there are no satisfactory answers," Hutcherson said.

Dioceses in different regions have tried various ways to handle the sexual abuse story, with mixed success.

In St. Louis, Archbishop Justin Rigali emerged from a month of silence last week with "a surprise press blitz," according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Rigali discussed the issue at length in several public settings, appeared on four TV stations and two radio stations, and spoke at the newspaper's offices.

In Boston, the archdiocese hired Morrissey & Co., a public relations firm with expertise in crisis communications. In Camden, N.J., the diocese hired a Philadelphia public relations firm, Tierney Advertising.

The Vatican's own public relations specialists agreed at a forum last year that silence on issues of such magnitude was risky.

In April 2001, more than 100 Catholic public relations specialists met in Rome to discuss espousing more direct "institutional communications" in such circumstances.

Pontiff spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told the group at Santa Croce University that if church leaders hire public relations firms simply for damage control, they will "lurch from one crisis to the next," the National Catholic Reporter said.

Navarro-Valls also said that information about the church is "the right of the people, not the property of the Vatican," according to the Catholic Reporter.

Speaker Francis Maier, chancellor of the Denver Archdiocese, told the group, "Evasion implies guilt."

Members of other faiths are watching the Catholic public relations situation with an eye toward learning something about crisis communications.

Will Stoddard, Las Vegas spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said he is loath to comment on an issue of such "sensitive nature."

"Obviously, in dealing with the issues the Catholic Church is dealing with, I would not speak at all," Stoddard said. He said he would hand the matter over to the LDS's public relations department in Salt Lake City.

But many media experts say the best policy is confronting the issue.

"The No. 1 rule of crisis communications is to get all of the bad news out right away," said Tobe Berkovitz, a communications professor at Boston University who has been following the controversy in Boston.

"The huge mistake that many organizations make, whether it's churches or corporations, is they try to stonewall and then information keeps coming out in the form of ... water torture," Berkovitz said.

Berkovitz said that, ultimately, it is the laity who will decide whether the church's level of communication is satisfactory.

"It depends on what the parishioners will accept," Berkovitz said. "Sometimes the parishioners want to be ostriches and put their head in the sand."

Hutcherson said local Catholics are split on whether they are getting enough information about what the diocese does to prevent and report sex abuse cases.

"Some are satisfied, and some will never be satisfied," Hutcherson said.