Rome ? Pope John Paul II has summoned American cardinals to the Vatican for an extraordinary meeting to talk about sex abuse scandals in the U.S. church.

The talks will take place early next week, a senior Vatican official said Monday.

The Vatican official said only the eight American cardinals in charge of an archdiocese will be involved in next week’s talks. They are Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore, Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit, Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, Cardinal Edward Egan of New York, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington.

The offices of Keeler, Maida, Mahony and Egan confirmed their planned attendance.

But a spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Sister Mary Ann Walsh, said the conference’s top two officials Bishop Wilton Gregory, the president, and Bishop William Skylstad, the vice president also will attend.

Besides the eight cardinals leading U.S. archdioceses, there are five other American cardinals: James Hickey, retired archbishop of Washington; Fordham University theologian Avery Dulles; and Vatican officials William Baum, Francis Stafford and Edmund Szoka.

Cardinals are second in the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy only to the pope himself. They usually are summoned to Rome only when new cardinals are named or for a conclave when a pope dies.

A special meeting of cardinals from just one country is extraordinary.

The Roman Catholic Church in the United States and elsewhere is under fire for its handling of a series of allegations of sex abuse by priests.

The church is accused of covering up misconduct by priests, in some cases by moving known abusers from job to job. It has already paid millions in damages and faces numerous lawsuits from victims.