VATICAN LIKELY TO REJECT US BISHOPS' DALLAS PLAN

VATICAN, Aug 14, 02 (CWNews.com) -- The Vatican will not grant approval to the norms adopted by the US bishops' conference for the discipline of sexual offenders, informed sources have told CWNews.com.

The US bishops' policies, adopted during a June meeting in Dallas, will require substantial changes before they can win the necessary approval from Rome, sources say.

If the Vatican does refuse to approve the US bishops' proposal in its current form, that decision will be motivated not by any desire to protect priests who are guilty of sexual abuse, but by Rome's insistence that the American bishops must use their own pastoral authority-- rather than a broad administrative approach-- to discipline abusive priests.

Without Vatican approval, the US bishops' proposals would not carry the authority of canon law. Individual bishops would be free to devise their own policies-- which could mirror the provisions of the Dallas proposal-- to govern the actions of their own dioceses.

At the Dallas meeting, and in subsequent public statements, spokesmen for the US bishops have assured reporters that the Vatican was likely to grant speedy approval for the US bishops' proposals, recognizing the importance of an aggressive national response to the sex-abuse scandal.

However, critics of the Dallas plan have pointed to rising concerns about some elements of the policy, raising serious questions about the fairness of the policy and the "due process" rights of priests who are accused of misconduct. Critics have also questioned whether some aspects of the proposed American policy might be in conflict with the Code of Canon Law.

In a recent analysis published in First Things, for example, that magazine's editor, Father Richard John Neuhaus, said that the Dallas proposals were the result of a hasty effort, as the US bishops responded to a barrage of negative publicity with a rush to create a sweeping and even draconian policy. "This is panic," Father Neuhaus wrote, "and panic results in recklessness."

Specifically, critics of the Dallas policy have cited such difficulties as: - the very broad and imprecise definition of sexual abuse, which could be stretched to include anything from impure thoughts to outright rape; - the absence of safeguards to protect the reputation of priests who might be unjustly accused; - the creation of lay "review boards" with vaguely defined powers; - the failure to guarantee that bishops would apply the norms fairly, or that bishops themselves would be subject to the proposed discipline; - the removal from priestly ministry of clerics who might have repented long-past misbehavior; and - the failure to address root causes of sexual abuse.

Earlier this week, leaders of the Conference of Religious Superiors for Men, gathered in Philadelphia, announced cited such problems as they decided not to adopt the bishops' policies for their own religious orders.

The Dallas proposal, before gaining the force of Church law, required the approval of three different Vatican bureaus: the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for Bishops, and the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts (which deals with issues of canon law).

In June, a Vatican canon-law specialists assured reporters that Rome would act "within a few weeks" in response to the American bishops' request for approval of the Dallas policy.

However that official (who spoke on condition of anonymity) said that the Vatican would carefully scrutinize the US proposal. He remarked that some Vatican officials regard the American bishops as likely to stretch the provisions of canon law and Vatican policy, even to the point of abuse-- as, for example, in the routine approval of marriage annulments.

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