The move last week by the Baptist General Convention of Texas to post names of nine former ministers who are convicted sex offenders on its Web site reflects measures already being taken by local churches.

The convention, which lists 63 affiliate churches in Bell County including 16 in Temple, posted the list Wednesday and announced that it will begin to review records of ministers in its member churches. The announcement also brought attention back to the existence of a non-publicized list of clergy who have been reported by churches or confessed to have enacted improper sexual behavior, set by church or legal guidelines.

The Rev. Norman Fry of Dyess Grove Baptist Church in Temple said he supports the posting of the individuals’ identities on the organization’s site.

“There should be some sort of public disclosure, especially in interchurch relationships where staff transfer from church to church,” Fry said. “Sometimes their record is not known to those who extend a call to them.”

The Rev. Trey Turner, a Temple pastor who sits on the executive board of directors of the organization, said the existence of the non-publicized file came as a surprise when he read an article about it in the The Dallas Morning News. Turner said he supports the organization in maintaining the file but is glad that it is not made public.

Turner said he runs a background check on every hire that would have contact with children in his congregation at Canyon Creek Baptist Church.

“I think there were some people in our church that at first blush were embarrassed to have background checks run on them,” Turner said. He said so far information obtained in background checks have not prevented him from hiring a prospective staff member.

A panel that regularly reviews the process by which sexual misconduct is reported within the organization suggested posting the convicted offenders in its last review, said Emily Prevost, associate coordinator for leader research and product development.

In describing the severity of sexual impropriety enacted by church officials, Mrs. Prevost cited a year 2000 report released by the Christian Life Commission, the organization’s lobbying and advocacy arms, that stated that around 12 percent of Protestant ministers say that they had some sort of sexual contact with a congregant. Somewhere between 35 to 40 percent had enacted improper sexual acts according to their Baptist guidelines, she said.

“This is a real problem,” Mrs. Prevost said. “It’s not going to go away, but we can take very practical steps to protect people that are within our churches.”

The non-publicized file was created after the release of the CLC report and it now contains almost 100 names, she said.

The file can only be accessed by congregations if an elected church official mails a notarized form to the organization, which would yield a mailed response confirming or denying the individual’s name in the file, but not specifying the reason why the person was added, Mrs. Prevost said.

The convention has several guidelines in determining sexual misconduct. Beyond an individual convicted in court, a person who is reported by a church or who has confessed to causing unwanted or inappropriate touch, suggestive displays of the body, extramarital sexual contact or sexual harassment can be included in the list.

“We don’t apologize for holding people to higher ethical standards,” Mrs. Prevost said.

Though she admits that there are legal ramifications to maintaining the non-publicized list, the organization is very careful not to tell churches what to do with the information.

Once a church sees fit to submit a report on an individual to the organization, the decision is not questioned, she said.

“If the church deems it credible and sent it to the organization, then we accept that,” Mrs. Prevost said.

Guidelines for reporting an individual are also available on the organization’s Web site.

The move is reminiscent of steps taken by the Roman Catholic Church after revelations within recent years of reports of sexual abuse carried out by clergy or staff.

The Rev. Tom Chamberlain of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Temple said this prompted Catholic Churches to rethink their hiring process.

“Once this whole thing started occurring and became a public matter, the bishops of this country came together and files began to be kept,” said Rev. Tom Chamberlain. “(Before that,) I don’t think there was any sort of concern back then about these matters.”

The more centralized organization of the Catholic Church means that hiring decisions for clergy are made on the level of the diocese - a district under the direction of a bishop.

The Catholic Church in the United States has a policy of running a background check and requiring an ethics course for anyone who works for a church, he said.

Turner said the precautions he takes in hiring his staff at his Baptist church are important for the safety of the children in his congregation.

“I hope it gives peace of minds to families; that they can say this is a church that cares about people,” Turner said.

A clergy-abuse victims support network blames the difficulty of victims’ ability to report their abusers on the more stratified nature of Baptist organization.

“Baptist do not have a hierarchical structure the way other denominations do. The local churches are completely autonomous,” said William Carrell, Dean of the College of Christian Studies at Mary Hardin-Baylor University.

In September, a letter from the Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests to officials of the Southern Baptist Convention argued that a system in which churches, instead of victims, are required to report abuse reveals an “institutionalized nature of the problem.”

“Just as family members cannot properly investigate a molestation claim made against a close relative, local church leaders cannot properly investigate a report of clergy abuse made against a much-loved minister,” said network officials in the letter.

mwest@temple-telegram.com