Law Arrives In Dallas For Bishops' Meeting

DALLAS -- Cardinal Bernard Law arrived in Dallas Wednesday for a three-day conference with U.S. bishops to deal with the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.

Video

Watch Kelley Tuthill's Report

NewsCenter 5's Kelley Tuthill reported that on the eve of the bishops' conference, members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests and other victims met with eight bishops. Many abuse victims said that they have heard promises in the past to stop the abuse.

"I would have to agree with them," said Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the Conference of Bishops. "I would agree that not enough has been done and that there has not been a consistent implementation of the recommendations that we arrived at even 10 years ago, which is the very reason that we are holding this particular meeting to establish a national protocol that will be obligatory."

The nation's nearly 400 active and retired bishops gathered in Dallas were greeted by a few protesters and headlines in The Dallas Morning News announcing the finding of the newspaper's three-month investigation.

The study claimed that more than 100 American bishops have helped protect priests involved in sexual scandals.

American church leaders did not dispute the results of the study, but questioned its relevance to the current crisis. The newspaper reviewed priestly misconduct dating back years -- sometimes decades -- when less was known about sex offenders, and physicians thought clergymen could return to work after undergoing treatment, the bishops said.

Gregory said that the clergy in the United States intend to solve the problem of sexual abuse by priests.

"The bishops of the United States are committed, because I think we have recognized the tragedy of not acting together consistently on policies and procedures that we had in place or proposed in the past," he said.

Among the topics to be debated at the conference are policies to promote healing and reconciliation with victims of sexual abuse, to guarantee effective response to abuse allegations by notifying authorities and removing suspected abusive priests, to assure accountability through the creation of the Office for Child and Youth Protection and to protect the faithful in the future.

Many of the meetings that begin Thursday morning will be open to the public and the media as part of the bishops' pledge to be open about the church's reforms.