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American Morning

Nation's Roman Catholic Bishops Begin Meeting Shortly in Dallas

Aired June 13, 2002 - 09:50   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The nation's Roman Catholic bishops begin meeting shortly in Dallas, Texas to discuss the sex abuse scandal rocking the church. Jason Carroll is standing be there, and he has new information that the bishops might be debating later today.

Good morning, Jason.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you, Paula. The meeting scheduled to get under way in just about 10 minutes from now. The committee on sexual abuse, though, met late into the evening last night trying to come up with a better policy to present to the bishops today. Critics say the current policy not strong enough. Critics want a zero-tolerance, a one strike and you're out type of policy to be adopted here.

The current policy calls for zero tolerance for all future cases of priests involved in sexual abuse, but not necessarily in past cases. But a highly-placed source here at the conference tells me that the bishops are considering plan to toughen their stance on past cases. They're consider changing the draft so that these one-time pass offenders would be permanently suspended for ministry. It basically means you cannot perform priestly duties, can not call yourself a priest, can not wear the collar. It's essentially like being defrocked or laicized without going through the official process, which had to go through the Vatican.

Early this morning, in fact on this very same show, the bishop from Bridgeport, Connecticut said that he would support a tougher proposal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BISHOP WILLIAM LORI, BRIDGEPORT, CT. DIOCESE: I certainly do support the strengthening of the current draft. I believe, speaking as a member of the committee, and speaking also as simply a pastor of souls, that if, in fact, a priest or any other church representative has sexually abused a minor, that person cannot remain in the ministerial position that he has.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: Another authority issuing that the bishops will have to deal with, and that is the issue of accountability. So far in this current proposal, there's nothing to indicate what happens if bishop does not end up following the mandatory policy that ends up being adopted here. Critics want to see language in the final proposal as well.

Later today, the bishops will meet with victims, as well as lay people. They hope by the end of the day, Paula, they can come up with some sort of comprehensive mandatory national policy that the bishops can end up voting on tomorrow -- Paula.

ZAHN: All right. Jason, thanks so much for keeping your eye on that.

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