The sexual abuse crisis. (In Catholic Circles).

Since January 2002, the Catholic church in the United States has been rocked by almost daily reports of new scandals, cover-ups and the moral and financial implications for the church hierarchy resulting from the issue of the sexual abuse by priests. While the scandal in Boston has received worldwide attention, there are similar situations in St. Louis, Florida, California, Philadelphia and Detroit. As many as 3,000 priests in the US have been accused of molesting children and bishops in Milwaukee and Florida have resigned. The archbishops of New York, Boston and Milwaukee have been accused of suppressing information about cases of abuse.

While the spotlight has shone on cases in the US, other countries have had their problems too. In Ireland, a bishop resigned for failing to protect children in his diocese from a pedophile priest, and the health minister set up a three-month inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic clerics. In Poland, an archbishop who served on the pope's personal staff resigned for sexually harassing seminarians. Cases have also been reported in several other countries including Italy, Chile, Australia, Canada, Belgium and France. Worldwide, at least 14 bishops, three of whom were accused of protecting priests, have resigned over sex abuse allegations since 1990.

Despite widespread calls for his resignation, Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston issued a statement April 12 stating that he would not resign. Paddy Agnew, the Irish Times correspondent in Rome, argued that "the suspicion must remain that the ageing, all-male, celibate and potentially ivory-tower ensconced Curia, and Pope John Paul II himself, simply do not understand the full, horrendous and painful dimensions of the problem of sexual abuse by priests."

Pope John Paul II summoned all the US cardinals to Rome for an unprecedented meeting on the escalating pedophilia scandal in the US. Nine US-based cardinals and three others with responsibilities in Rome were joined by the elected leaders of the church in the US, Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and Bishop William Skylstad, vice president of the USCCB.

The speed at which the meeting took place, barely ten days after it was announced, and the fact that it is only cardinals from one country who were summoned to Rome, made it almost unprecedented. Thomas Groome, a professor of religious studies at Boston College, said, "The fact that he is only calling the American cardinals suggests he is calling them all to the woodshed."

President George W. Bush raised his concerns about the matter in a private session with Pope John Paul II in Rome. According to his spokesman, the president spoke about the church's situation in the US but did not necessarily address specifically the sexual abuse crisis. It is very unusual for a political leader to get involved in religious affairs in this manner, reflecting perhaps the importance of Catholic voters to Bush and the anger the scandal has raised among them.

At the Catholic Press Association's national convention, Bishop Joseph Galante of Dallas, a member of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, called for church leaders to be "more open and honest with the public." He acknowledged that, "the question of secrecy has killed us."

Many have expressed outrage that church lawyers have decided to counter-sue in some instances, charging that parents and guardians were negligent in leaving children alone with priests. Responding with what has been characterized as a "muscular display of legal power," and an "aggressive litigation strategy," the church has fought to keep documents secret and settlements small. One victim was asked whether he had enjoyed the abuse, others have left depositions in tears after cross-examination by lawyers for the church. Lawyers and insurance companies for the church argue they are following good practice and that their ethical obligations lie with the church, and "not some abstract moral standard."

Deal Hudson, editor of the conservative Catholic magazine Crisis and an adviser to President George W. Bush, repeated what many church critics on the left and the right see as a defining feature of the problem: the Vatican is in denial. After meeting with Vatican officials, he reported: "Most of the high-level Curia officials think there really IS no scandal. They told me it's just another case of media bias against the church ... that secular news reporters are just blowing things out of proportion. They say, rightly enough, that the church doesn't have any more pedophiles than any other institution. In fact, one official commented that there have always been sexual scandals in the church, and the church is always going to be subject to sin, so why are we so concerned?"