The former FBI agent who established the child protection office created by U.S. Roman Catholic bishops said Monday she will step down in February after more than two years on the job.
Kathleen McChesney said she has fulfilled her commitment to set up the Office for Child and Youth Protection and is ready to leave.
Her contract was due to end this year, but she extended it to finish the latest round of audits of every American diocese to see if they are complying with the bishops' policy on preventing clergy sex abuse.
"Now is the time for other people with other ideas - and hopefully inspiration - to continue the work," she said.
Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, a spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said a search committee would be formed to find her replacement.
McChesney was the third-ranking official in the FBI when the bishops appointed her director of their newly created child protection office in November 2002. They formed the office as part of widespread reforms meant to end sex abuse by clergy. As a lay person, her mandate has been a challenging one: to monitor whether bishops are following their own policies.
She encountered some resistance among church leaders, but said the latest round of audits - due to be released in February - show that most have fully implemented the bishops' prevention plan.
She said she was not tired out by the job, but was simply leaving because she had completed her assignment.
"I have done what I was asked to do," she said.
McChesney spent 31 years in law enforcement, 24 of them with the FBI, working in San Francisco, Washington, Los Angeles, Detroit, Portland, Ore., and as chief of the Chicago office before moving to FBI headquarters.
She said she did not know what she would do next.