Tucked away on a 43-acre suburban campus in Silver Spring, the St. Luke Institute boasts garden courtyards, tennis and handball courts and, by its own account, extraordinary success over the past two decades in treating the dark and complex problem of clergy sexual abuse.
But as the Roman Catholic Church struggles with the latest scandal involving the sexual abuse of minors, the efforts of the church-run psychiatric center and its self-reported success rate are under new scrutiny, with critics saying the facility has been too willing to let potentially dangerous priests return to the ministry in order to please church officials heavily invested in the priests' training and recovery.
"These centers, particularly one like St. Luke, do a big, big business with the church," said Gary R. Schoener, a Minneapolis psychologist who has closely studied the Maryland center and similar facilities. "It's the same problem consultants have - when you have one big customer, the tendency is to treat them nicely and have things go the way they want it to go."
Current and past officials with St. Luke dispute that suggestion. They say that far from being part of the problem in the roiling Catholic sexual abuse scandal, the center - with its blend of progressive art and drama therapy, drug treatment and exhaustive group and 12-step counseling sessions - is part of the solution.
An internal study of the more than 450 priests who underwent the center's six-month treatment program between 1985 and 1995 showed only three of the men relapsed - a conclusion based on reports from the men themselves, their church supervisors or law enforcement officials.
Center officials say few of the priests they treat are ever returned to their old duties or allowed to work again with young people.
"I never had pressure from any bishop to send a priest back and, in many cases, we had people who we thought were able to go back, and we had a hard time convincing any bishops to take them," said the Rev. Canice Connors, a past president of St. Luke.
The current church crisis, however, has focused new attention on St. Luke's role in advising the church on whether known sexual offenders should be returned to ministry. In several high-profile cases, church officials knew about sexual abuse allegations - and had priests evaluated or treated at St. Luke - but still shuttled them from parish to parish.