Pardon my skepticism: in their rush to move on, the bishops seem to be counting on our short memories.

"LET ME CLARIFY THIS," THE YOUNG CATHOLIC BUSInesswoman said. "We are to trust the accuracy of data provided by the very group of people who had to commission this study because they had not been trustworthy in the first place. Is this correct?"

Her pointed question elicited nods and clapping from a group discussing the John Jay report, the research study on clergy sexual abuse released in late February by the U.S. Catholic bishops. Once again I felt the familiar struggle between my love for the church and my anger and embarrassment at the abysmal way too many church leaders have handled the clergy abuse issue. This woman had pinpointed a troubling problem with the report: Its credibility rests on the honesty of those who provided the data.

The study team from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice did not have access to confidential church files. They relied on the "conscientious and good-faith effort to provide exhaustive and reliable information regarding allegations of abuse" by many of the same church authorities who had stonewalled discovery of such information for years. I believe that many church leaders were conscientious in providing accurate data. But it strains credulity to trust that all of them did, thus limiting the study's believability--especially among the faithful folks in the pews who have been battered by the bungled handling of this tragedy for nearly two decades.

For the past 20 years my ministry has included evaluating clergy offenders and doing psychotherapy with victims of clergy abuse. I am weary, I am sad, I am angry. The knot in my stomach tightens even as I think about it. Aside from the limitations that characterize all self-report surveys, this study is too little, too late, and too filled with opportunity for church leaders to think that the research is done and they can move on.

Even before the report was widely available to the public, Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said, "The terrible history recorded here today is history" I wanted him to say, "The terrible history recorded here today is the tip of the iceberg. We acknowledge that the numbers of victims and clergy perpetrators identified in the study are conservative. We are painfully aware that we have not yet identified and made accountable those bishops who treated victims as adversaries and moved clergy perpetrators around. We will initiate this investigation immediately."

The John Jay report provides sobering numbers and raises challenging questions that beg further study. But the actual report is not my immediate concern. Rather, it is the response the study is receiving from too many church leaders that alarms me. I continue to see a profound level of cognitive distortion and selective forgetting as too many of these men scramble yet one more time to minimize the issue and shirk responsibility. Ask any victim: Forced apologies, years in coming, are rarely convincing.

As many bishops laud themselves for commissioning the report, they seem to forget that they were forced into it--not by their compassion for victims but by the outcry of the people. Newspaper phrases like "unprecedented sign of accountability" praise the bishops' newfound openness--as if the study alone could replace the lack of accountability that fueled the clergy abuse crisis in the first place. Praise for the church's "intentional act of transparency" suggests a level of radical honesty that simply has not been there. Such distortion further alienates people.

UNPRECEDENTED SIGN OF ACCOUNTABILITY? INTENTIONAL act of transparency? These phrases, put forward in the wake of unprecedented abuse and intentional acts of cover-up, seem to assume that the people of God have short memories and can easily be plied with spin. It is precisely this kind of distortion--in Catholic and secular newspapers alike--that keeps my trust at bay. As one bishop, who has done much to help the healing, said sadly, "Too many of my brothers still don't get it."

The John Jay report is a first step, brought about not by accountable and transparent bishops, but by people who will not let their church be governed by leaders whose concern for the church's image (and their own) has too often been greater than their concern for children. This gives me hope. The leadership of the church lies ultimately in safe and courageous hands--those of the people of God.

By SISTER FRAN FERDER, F.S.P.A., a clinical psychologist, co director of Therapy and Renewal Associates in Seattle, and co-author of Tender Fires: The Spiritual Promise of Sexuality (Crossroad, 2002).