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CNN Live Today

American Cardinals Consider Zero-Tolerance Policy

Aired April 24, 2002 - 14:26   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now, their two-day is wrapping up, and we are expecting a statement any moment now from the 12 American cardinals who have been meeting in Rome. They have indicated they may adopt a zero-tolerance policy for priests who molest children.

CNN's Jonathan Mann once again joins us live from Rome. He has been covering this summit, and we are all eagerly awaiting the outcome -- Jonathan.

JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It has been an extraordinary two days in the history of the Catholic Church, a scandal really that may be the greatest crisis in the history of American religion. These 12 cardinals have come to Rome to seek the guidance of Pope John Paul III to confer with his most trusted cardinals inside the bureaucracy of the Vatican, the Curia.

And in a short time, we are expecting to hear the result, a communique, a broad statement of principles that the cardinals will have when they return to the United States and try to direct the work of their bishops who will themselves be meeting in June in Dallas and formulating what are expected to be the most concrete plans and the most clear steps that the church plans to take to deal with both past abuses and to prevent them from recurring in the future.

We have been waiting some time. When I started waiting, the sum was warm enough to stand by, and I wasn't wearing this overcoat. We are told now the five-minute alert has been given. And so we are expecting now that the news conference will be under way very shortly.

A really fascinating glimpse at a closed-door conversation and a very closed institution that has really been forced to be much more open in the past few weeks -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So what happens? Once the cardinals come out and talk about what the guidelines and what they have decided, what they have discussed, where do things go from there?

MANN: Well, that really is what this is all about, where the church will go from here. This is a turning point. In very concrete terms, we expect the cardinals to have a very broad and really maybe even a disappointingly vague set of instructions for members of the church. But once again, it will be the bishops in June who will decide on a national policy that will take the place of the piecemeal policies that have been adopted in individual diocese, a national policy that will govern the church's conduct in dealing with priests who are accused of these terrible abuses.

So what we are expecting is the cardinals will speak, the cardinals will come to some consensus. They will return to the United States. They will talk to the hundreds of bishops in the United States. The bishops will then decide in June in Dallas at their national conference what the church of the United States will do as a whole.

PHILLIPS: All right. Jonathan Mann, we are still continuing to stand by and wait for the cardinals to address reporters and the public and the nation.

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