BOSTON -- A meeting of American cardinals at the Vatican opened with a statement from the pope condemning abuse by priests.

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NewsCenter 5's Jack Harper reported that cardinals speaking at a post-meeting news conference said that the issue of Cardinal Bernard Law resigning never came up.

"He didn't speak about a possible resignation. Nobody asked him about it," Cardinal Francis George of Chicago said.

George said that Law apologized for his past actions, admitting that it was his mistakes that made the meeting necessary.

"He started out saying that in a sense, if he had not made some terrible mistakes, we probably would not be here, and he apologized for that," George said.

Pope John Paul II said in remarks at the beginning of the meeting that priests involved in abuse should be removed swiftly.

"The abuse which has caused this crisis is by every standard wrong and rightly considered a crime by society; it is also an appalling sin in the eyes of God," the pope said.

Meeting participants said that while the church will move to identify and oust abusers, all abusers are not equal.

"There is a difference between a moral monster like Geoghan who preys upon little children and does so in a serial fashion and someone who perhaps under the influence of alcohol engages in an action with a 17- or 16 -year-old girl who returns his affection," George said.

"That is still a crime in every instance, and so the civil law doesn't distinguish. In terms of the culpability and in terms of the possibility for a reform of one's life, they're two very different sets of circumstances," he said.

Church officials said that they would also examine the issue of homosexuality in the priesthood, saying that the church is considering a renewed effort to end discrimination against heterosexual men in some seminaries.

"It is an ongoing struggle," said Bishop Wilton Gergory of the U.S. Conference of Bishops. "It is most importantly a struggle to make sure that the Catholic priesthood is not dominated by homosexual men."

Church officials said that there will not be a scheduled second briefing Tuesday. Law has not commented directly on what has happened so far.