The Bishops Get Off The Hook

By DAVID VAN BIEMA

Joseph Sullivan read with some apprehension the language on clerical child abuse that his brother bishops passed by a 239-to-13 vote last Friday in Dallas. It looks as if "we've just hung the priests out to dry," said the Brooklyn auxiliary bishop. Despite some complaints from victims, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops document is laudably tough on priests who abuse: any molester, past or future, will be forbidden to wear a collar, celebrate a public Mass or publicly call himself a priest. But the superiors who enabled the behavior got off easy. The document's defenders point out that only the Pope may fire a bishop, which is true. But by failing to censure any by name, the conference may have lost a chance to convince a bruised Catholic laity of the hierarchy's ability to reform itself. Said Sullivan grimly: "Our credibility is still on the line."

The plan may also face trouble in Rome. Dallas Bishop Joseph Galante, one of the drafters of the document, predicts that "if they offer any changes, it will just be tweaking." But a canon-law expert close to the Vatican says some there perceive a "guillotine" attitude in the U.S. that sacrifices priests' rights to public opinion. It may not bode well that one of the most interested Vatican Cardinals is Dario Castrillon Hoyos, a papal contender who has hinted that the crisis is driven mostly by the American press.

--By David Van Biema. Reported by Marguerite Michaels/Dallas and Jeff Israely/Rome

With reporting by Marguerite Michaels/Dallas and Jeff Israely/Rome