VATICAN CITY (CNS): US Church leaders left an unprecedented US-Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse with a proposed plan of action, including a national policy to deal with priest offenders and a special process for dismissing them from the priesthood.
Participants in the April 23-24 summit said there was increasing agreement among US Church leaders on adopting a “zero tolerance” approach to priests who abuse minors. But they said the question would not be settled until the bishops’ June meeting in Dallas and the definitive formulation of a national policy.
The two-day marathon meeting brought together 12 US cardinals, three top officials of the US bishops’ conference and heads of eight Vatican departments. The Pope addressed the group’s opening session.
In a final statement, issued at a late-night Vatican press conference, US summit participants said their specific proposals to the Vatican included:
- A set of “national standards” to deal with the sexual abuse of minors by priests.
- A “special process for the dismissal from the clerical state of a priest who has become notorious and is guilty of the serial, predatory, sexual abuse of minors”.
- A similar process for cases that are “not notorious” but where the bishop “considers the priest a threat for the protection of children and young people, in order to avoid grave scandal in the future and to safeguard the common good of the Church”.
