Bishops Urged to Punish Those Who Cover Up Crimes

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops, gathering here to address the national storm of priestly sex scandals, faced vocal demands Wednesday to go beyond zero tolerance for abusive priests and discipline the leaders who cover the crimes up.

Victim advocates held a private meeting and then an extraordinary joint appearance with bishops. They called on church leaders to strengthen the proposed new national policy on sexual abuse by removing bishops who “aided and abetted” priests in repeating their abusive behavior by reassigning rather than dismissing them.

This demand, rising in many churches throughout the nation, is shifting the focus of the Dallas meeting from errant priests to church authorities.

Bishops will formally open their conference today to debate what would be the Roman Catholic Church’s first mandatory national policy on sexual abuse.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., said he found the sessions “heartbreaking.”

“In the last couple of hours, I hope I’ve grown. I hope I will be wiser and more courageous when the [bishops’ advisory] committee presents its report,” McCarrick told reporters.

Since the scandals broke in January, more than 250 priests and four bishops have resigned, scores of churches have reported declines in contributions and a rising tide of lay Catholics is demanding a greater voice in church policy.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will consider a committee’s proposal to defrock any priest who is found guilty of sexually abusing minors after the new policy takes effect.

In a controversial loophole, however, the committee proposed that a priest who is guilty of a single incident of sexual abuse could be returned to the ministry if he had sought psychological counseling, was found not to be a pedophile and had the backing of a lay-dominated sexual abuse committee.

Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said victim groups wanted the Catholic bishops not only to provide penalties for themselves but also to eliminate the loophole for priests and open all financial and personnel records to scrutiny by law enforcement.

Blaine said in the victims’ three-hour meeting with bishops and cardinals, the first in a decade, Catholic officials “expressed a willingness to hear the pain and suffering.” But she added, “We’re still going to be looking for more than lofty words.”

Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said demands to hold bishops accountable were sure to be hotly debated but declined to offer his own opinion on what should be done. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles said bishops had been privately discussing the topic but were “not sure at the moment” what the solution should be.

Any proposal to remove bishops for administrative malfeasance would require a change in canon law. Currently, only the pope can remove a bishop, but an archbishop can recommend that Rome move against a bishop in his region.

“In the short term, the chances of the bishops taking steps to hold themselves accountable are very slim. But it’s part of the answer, so we’ll keep bringing it up,” said David Clohessy, director of the survivors network.

Times staff writers Larry B. Stammer and William Lobdell contributed to this report.