Lansing - The bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lansing said despite the church’s recent sex abuse scandals, its ultimate purpose is protecting the children.

“We are free from this crisis in Lansing,” Bishop Carl Mengeling said at a Wednesday news conference at the diocese center, 300 W. Ottawa St.

“We have to look at this with patience and time and never forget that our main concern is with the children and victims of Lansing. The effects of child abuse often go on for a lifetime.”

The conference was the first public statement by the bishop, who said he didn’t feel it was appropriate to publicly speak about the scandal until now.

Mengeling said a priest is a human being who can be weak, fragile and fail easily.

“This is a sickness and part of it doesn’t preclude choice,” he said. “It is a grave crime, a horrendous act and betrayal of trust, but it is not an act of a monster.”

American cardinals and Pope John Paul II reached consensus Wednesday on a “one-strike-you’re-out” policy that would dismiss any priest involved in a sex abuse case.

The policy came in a six-paragraph statement released from the Vatican to American priests as U.S. church leaders and top Vatican officials pledged to support U.S. priests in every possible way through troubled times.

Mengeling said the Diocese of Lansing receives numerous unsubstantiated claims of sex abuse against the clergy and “90 percent of them are untrue.”

“An anonymous letter of a claim isn’t sufficient enough to evaluate by itself,” he said. “The substantiated allegations of sex abuse are the ones we have to deal with. No one who has substantiated claims of sexual abuse will be working here in Lansing.”

Mengeling said three members of the clergy in Lansing, out of 140, were dismissed for substantiated claims about 25 years ago.

He also said he’s meeting with various church officials today to discuss local parishioners’ sense of loss and disappointment.

In recent months, two child sexual abuse claims have risen against the Michigan clergy. The Diocese of Saginaw is facing a claim against John Hammer, pastor of two Gratiot County parishes and formerly a priest at Saginaw’s St. Stephen Catholic Church.

The second is Vincent DeLorenzo, a Flint priest, who admitted he had inappropriate sexual contact with a minor in the late 1970s.

Mark Inglot, a pastor at St. John’s Student Parish, 327 M.A.C. Ave., said he’s upset with the way sex abuse cases were handled in past years.

“We operated on bad advice for psychological treatment,” he said. “Priests could get therapy, then go back to the clergy and that’s an old viewpoint that we’ve endured. I think it should be more honest, or make sure they were on assignments where they didn’t work with children.”

Paul Long, spokesman for the Michigan Catholic Conference, said a bill will be introduced in the Legislature in the next two or three weeks that will add the clergy to the child protection law.

This law would add the clergy to various professionals who are required to report reasonable cause for suspected child abuse. Some of these professionals include school administrators, dentists, physicians and law enforcement officials

“We will be supportive of that legislation as long as it protects confidentiality of the confessional,” Long said.

Child development sophomore Shawn Wozniak said he thinks authorities need to take more preventative strategies against sex abuse.

“A priest should never be alone with someone under the age of 16 for precautionary purposes,” he said. “It would help in getting people’s trust back. Priests should administer an apology to the public and to the victims. There also needs to be a call for all guilty priests to come forward that haven’t yet already.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Erica Berg can be reached at bergeri1@msu.edu.