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| Sunday, 9 June 2002 |
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U.S. bishops cancel meetings with victims group WASHINGTON, June 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Friday said it had canceled meetings in Dallas next week with members of a group of sexual abuse victims after the group filed a class-action lawsuit against three Roman Catholic dioceses and the bishops conference. In a statement released late Friday, the bishops conference said the victims' group, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, had "thrown obstacles and legal impediments in the way of continuing dialogue." "I must say that we are very disappointed that just at the moment when frank and productive meetings could occur, (the survivors group) has created a barrier to the very cooperation you have called for so often in the past," Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the conference, told the survivors network in a letter. Gregory said the bishops would still meet with other victims' groups at a three-day meeting that begins in Dallas next week. The main topic of the Dallas meeting is the adoption of a national policy on sexual abuse of minors by priests. The lawsuit filed by the survivors network in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Thursday, seeks to end confidentiality agreements that were part of the settlements of sexual abuse lawsuits against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa, and the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri. In its statement, the bishops conference said that by filing the lawsuit, the survivors network had "precluded its participation in full, open and public dialogue with the bishops and the conference as planned." David Clohessy, director of the survivors network, told The Washington Post he considered the bishops' action "absolutely mind-boggling." He said his group and the conference had agreed that groups of 25 victims of sexual abuse by priests would meet first with a committee of bishops that has drafted a policy on the issue and later with three cardinals. Cardinal Roger Mahony, head of America's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, said on Thursday he would urge his fellow prelates to adopt a tougher, "zero-tolerance" stand on sexual abuse than a new policy proposed by the bishops conference. The conference recommended defrocking any priest who sexually abuses children in the future, but left open the prospect that some past offenders could remain in the clergy. In Dallas, the bishops will vote on those standards, which some church leaders have said do not go far enough. The proposals are aimed at stemming a scandal that erupted in January and has grown into what is widely viewed as the greatest crisis to have faced the church in modern times. |
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