CHICAGO (IL)
Contra Costa Times
RACHEL ZOLL
Associated Press
CHICAGO - U.S. Roman Catholic bishops are expected to extend their policy of permanently barring sex offenders from church work, but victims' groups say prelates cannot be trusted to enforce their own plan.
The advocates, protesting outside a bishops' meeting Thursday, said some guilty priests remain in ministry.
"We take little comfort in the fact that `zero-tolerance' remains the official policy when some bishops still ignore that pledge," said Barbara Blaine, founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "This never was a tough, binding national policy."
Church leaders adopted the discipline plan in an unprecedented June 2002 assembly, with the mandate that it be reviewed. A bishops' panel says it has recommended revisions that leave the policy largely intact. A vote is set for Friday, and if approved by American bishops, the policy would stay in place for five more years.