Some 300 US Catholic bishops and cardinals began talks today on how to respond to the sex scandal that has been embroiling the church for months.
"The Catholic Church in the United States is in a very grave crisis, perhaps the gravest we have faced," said Fr Wilton Gregory, the Bishop of Belleville, Illinois, in his opening statement.
Over the next three days the conference is to adopt guidelines on how to deal with priests who have sexually abused children.
After a series of meetings with victims of sexual abuse by priests in recent weeks, the bishops said their views would be taken into account as church leaders worked through the night to update their Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
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Mr Bill Betzen, member of the We Are The Church religious group, sits across the street from the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas, Texas, the site of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Photograph: Reuters
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"The charter as it now stands has an element of accountability in it but what we heard this afternoon is that that element should be strengthened," said Archbishop Harry Flynn of St. Paul-Minneapolis, who chaired the committee charged with drafting the policy.
"My committee will be meeting through the night in order to look at recommendations that have come in and see what we can do with them before tomorrow," he told reporters.
Archbishop Flynn said the committee received 107 pages of suggested changes to the draft, which is only seven pages long. "There will be substantial modifications to the charter as we released it last week," he said.
Archbishop Flynn spoke at a news conference on the eve of the formal start today to a meeting of US bishops whose only agenda item is the scandal over paedophile priests that started with the trial of a single cleric in Boston in January and spread around the country and the world.
Four US bishops have stepped down due to sexual abuse allegations and about 250 priests have resigned. Bishops in Ireland, Poland, Africa, Canada and Australia have also been forced to resign over similar scandals.