The extraordinary summit of US cardinals and Vatican officials on clergy sex abuse will likely focus on speeding up the removal of errant priests, a leader among American bishops said this evening.
Also on the table at next week's meeting: the merits of implementing a binding national policy that could standardize how US bishops handle charges of molestation against Roman Catholic clergy.
"The commitment to protecting the safety of children and vulnerable people and the commitment of all of us bishops and clergy to lives of integrity is not going to end," said Bishop Joseph Galante, coadjutor of Dallas and member of a panel overseeing the US bishops' response to the sex abuse scandal.
Observers cautioned against high expectations for the Rome gathering.
The church is known for its deliberative style, and the meeting next Tuesday and Wednesday should be seen as one step in a long struggle to restore trust in the church, they said.
Still, the Vatican has never before moved as swiftly to convene a meeting of cardinals. The pope called all American archbishops to Rome in 1989 to discuss divorce among Catholics and other issues, but that gathering was planned long in advance.
"It seems to indicate that there was some concern not just to protect the church from scandal, but for the bishops to be true pastors and shepherds of their flock," said Mr Christopher Bellitto, a church historian and academic editor of the Paulist Press.
"It seems to indicate that the pope is exercising his role as the good shepherd and not simply the CEO."
Mr Russell Shaw, a former spokesman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Knights of Columbus, saw the pope's summons as a show of solidarity with the American church and Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston.
Law's archdiocese has been the epicenter of the raging scandal which has hopped from diocese to diocese. The cardinal acknowledged in January that he failed to remove a pedophile priest now accused of molesting more than 130 people. He has refused to step down in the face of intense pressure from angry Catholics, and will be among the 13 US cardinals attending the Vatican meeting.
"I think the pope wants it to be known that he backs Cardinal Law and he wants it also to be known that the cardinal's colleagues in the American hierarchy do as well," Mr Shaw said.
Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, a spokesman for the US bishops conference, said Vatican officials would be listening to the cardinals' ideas next week, not issuing orders.
Among the participants in the Rome meeting will be three cardinals heading the Vatican offices on clergy, bishops and doctrinal orthodoxy. The doctrinal office is led by the powerful Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a confidant of the pope.
Monsignor Maniscalco and Bishop Galante said the US delegation hopes to convince the Holy See to change church law and allow them to remove pedophiles from the priesthood without cumbersome appeals to Rome. Now, bishops can only temporarily suspend priests.
The Rome summit will also help the cardinals develop a blueprint for a June meeting of US bishops, who will vote on a response to the crisis.
In 1992, the conference developed guidelines on responding to abuse claims, but each diocese is autonomous and compliance is voluntary. The bishops need Vatican approval to implement a binding policy. Monsignor Maniscalco said a national protocol that does not require ratification by Rome could also be adopted in June.