U.S. Cardinals Are Called to Vatican

Pope John Paul II on Monday summoned all eight U.S. cardinals to Rome next week for an unprecedented closed-door meeting on the burgeoning sexual-abuse scandal in the United States.

Experts were stunned by the announcement because the pope has never called cardinals on such short notice to confer on a single controversy. Only days ago, the Vatican strongly indicated that the pope intended to leave the crisis in the hands of American bishops.

Some U.S. Vatican watchers said they hoped the news meant John Paul is finally realizing the gravity of the scandal. Four weeks ago, the pope declared that guilty priests had succumbed to “the most grievous forms” of evil, but offered no suggestions on practical ways to address the problem.

Church insiders said the pope’s intentions could range from repeating his support of the American church in a time of crisis to asking hard questions about how the United States’ 195 Catholic dioceses plan to solve the problem.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles, archbishop of the nation’s largest Catholic archdiocese, said that he expects the Vatican discussions to be “open, frank and without limitations.” They will probably be held April 23 and 24.

Just Saturday, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, emerged from meetings in Rome to say the pope “at this point” was relying on American bishops, who have total authority of individual dioceses, to handle the crisis. Gregory said the pope expressed “fraternal solidarity” with U.S. bishops and had been “deeply touched” by the suffering and scandal. But there was no hint of a meeting.

“Obviously, someone over there has decided that maybe they check into this a little bit further,” said Father Richard P. McBrien, a Catholic commentator and theology professor at the University of Notre Dame, who has been critical of how the scandal has been handled by the Vatican and U.S. bishops.

Sister Jeannine Gramick, a reform-minded nun who was silenced by the Vatican for soft-pedaling church teachings on homosexuality, said Monday it was “extraordinary” that the Vatican would respond to an issue that has been kept alive by the “grass-roots church.”

“I have great hope that this will be reform for the church,” she said.

But McBrien and others cautioned against expecting any concrete policy changes to emerge from the meeting.

The scandal has precipitated a crisis of confidence among rank-and-file Catholics, calls for the resignations of the cardinal-archbishops of Boston and New York, the firing of scores of priests and the resignation of a Florida bishop.

The scandal mushroomed from media revelations in January that Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston had knowingly transferred priests with histories of molesting youths from parish to parish.

On Monday, attorneys said 450 more people have come forward claiming they were sexually abused by Boston-area priests. These are in addition to 86 victims of one former Boston priest, John Geoghan, who reached an out-of-court settlement with the Boston diocese last month.

U.S. bishops, who will meet in Dallas this June, are hammering out new initiatives behind the scenes to further address a problem that has dogged them for several decades.

Gregory, bishop of Belleville, Ill., said he hoped the Dallas meeting will agree on a common protocol to be followed by all dioceses on how to prevent and deal with sex-abuse allegations. The bishops’ conference has no authority to impose such a policy, however, and sexual-abuse prevention policies differ from diocese to diocese.

Mahony is thought to be carving out a role for himself on the national scene by calling for more direct involvement by members of the laity in diocesan polices. Among those on his sexual-abuse advisory committee are the parents of two boys who were molested. A retired judge also sits on the panel.

“I welcome an expanded role in our wonderful Catholic laity in dealing with these issues now and in the future,” Mahony said Monday. Such a step was seen as a response to criticisms that the church has been secretive in dealing with the sexual-abuse scandal and that bishops were not accountable for their actions to anyone except the pope.

Mahony recently told The Times that he intends to ask bishops in Dallas why some failed to act earlier, even though he has recently come under criticism himself for failing to inform Cedars-Sinai Medical Center that a Catholic chaplain assigned there had been accused of sexually molesting a minor.

McBrien, who had called for the resignation of Boston’s Cardinal Law, said Monday that Law and Cardinal Edward M. Egan of New York should excuse themselves from the Vatican talks.

“They’re targets of investigations. They’ve been accused themselves of serious malfeasance in office in this matter,” McBrien said.

He added, “The best one can expect, even with this particular group of people, is that the Vatican officials may get the idea that this crisis is bigger than they thought.

“It’s not just a symptom of American permissiveness,” McBrien said. “It’s not just a few bad apples. It’s not just a media-generated crisis. It isn’t something that liberal Catholics have hijacked to press their own agenda. If out of this meeting they come away with the idea that this is not something they can ride out, that will be a positive outcome.”

Cardinals called to Rome are Mahony, Law, Egan, Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia, Francis George of Chicago, William Keeler of Baltimore, Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington and Adam Maida of Detroit. It was not clear whether retired cardinals or those assigned to the Vatican would participate. Gregory and bishops conference vice president William Skylstad of Spokane will attend.