Vatican City ? Decrying sex abuse in the church as a sin and a crime, Pope John Paul II told American church leaders Tuesday there was no room in the priesthood “for those who would harm the young.”

But one of the cardinals attending the emergency meeting said the pope may have left some leeway for wayward priests who repent and undergo treatment to resume their ministry as long as they had no contact with children.

Members of the Italian Radical Party demonstrate outside St. Peter's Square at the Vatican against clerical sex abuse.

The pope’s language was his strongest yet on the molestation scandal that since January has convulsed the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. American prelates appeared to take his words to heart, making progress toward an agreement on a new plan of action.

The pope’s use of the word “crime” seemed to end any lingering debate on whether U.S. bishops should refer abuse accusations against priests to secular authorities, as many are now doing.

The Americans worked until 10 p.m. Tuesday on a communique expected to come at the close of the two-day summit today.

After the meeting, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago said in an interview with The Associated Press that whatever comes out of this week’s gathering will be part of the process in which all the U.S. bishops will set a new policy together in June.

John Paul’s talk to the Americans, delivered in English, had a striking gloves-off tone compared with many papal utterances.

“The abuse which has caused this crisis is by every standard wrong and rightly considered a crime by society” as well as an “appalling sin” before God, he said.

In comments outside the closed-door meeting, Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles said “practically every one of us brought up close collaboration with law enforcement” during the first round of discussions.

John Paul was emphatic about how priests should not behave.

“People need to know that there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who harm the young,” the pope said. That made it obvious abusers must be removed. But what about readmitting them to active ministry after therapy and repentance?

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, left, listens to Bishop Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Ill., head of the U.S. Conference of Bishops, before a news conference at the North American College in Rome. Gregory and George were among the American cardinals and bishops who attended Tuesday's summit meeting with Pope John Paul II.

In Mahony’s view, the pope “made it very clear that there is no place in the priesthood for anyone who abuses minors.”

“It’s the strongest language I’ve seen about what we call at home ‘zero tolerance,”‘ he said. Others have called this the “one strike and you’re out” policy.

However, George said this wasn’t entirely clear, because in another passage the pope spoke of “the power of Christian conversion, that radical decision to turn away from sin and back to God.”

In the interview later Tuesday, George said, “I want to leave myself open for the moment.” He explained that “in theory” there might be cases where priests could resume if kept “far away from children.”

“Are the children safe? That is the issue.”

For the first time this year the pope spoke out for the victims: “To the victims and their families, wherever they may be, I express my profound sense of solidarity and concern.”

John Paul invited the Americans to continue the talks over lunch with him today.

One new idea proposed here is formation of a national blue-ribbon panel of prominent laymen and women to monitor the church’s performance.

Two disputes are off the table, Mahony said: whether Boston’s embattled Cardinal Bernard Law should resign and whether the church should consider relaxing the celibacy rule for priests. The first is a matter between the pope and Law, he said. The second does not fit this meeting’s purpose, though Mahony indicated it would be on the church’s future agenda.

“Our focus is on what can help the church today and next week,” he said.

While Catholic liberals see ending celibacy as a long-term remedy, conservatives notably including the pope’s spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls want new enforcement to keep all homosexuals out of the priesthood, even if they maintain celibacy.

Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit said behavioral scientists think “it’s not truly a pedophilia type problem but a homosexual type problem.” He said bishops need to “cope with and address” the extent of a homosexual element in Catholic seminaries.

And Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, acknowledged “it is an ongoing struggle to make sure that the Catholic priesthood is not dominated by homosexual men.”

Allegations of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests also have surfaced recently in Austria, Ireland, France, Australia and the pope’s native Poland.

Mahony said he made that point in his own remarks to the meeting and emphasized the importance of priests in religious orders as opposed to “diocesan” priests. Many of the American investigations have involved “diocesan” priests who are under direct jurisdiction of bishops. Priests in orders are often “moved from country to country” and make up half the world’s clergy.

John Paul also said “the church herself is viewed with distrust and many are offended at the way in which the church’s leaders are perceived to have acted.”

No leader is more under fire than Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law. George told reporters that when the American delegation first gathered informally on Monday night, Law told the group that “had he not made some terrible mistakes we would not be here. And he apologized for that.”

Maida joined those calling for Law to stay on. “I’ve known him for years, almost as long as he’s been bishop, over 30 years. He has been such a great influence on our own conference of bishops in the United States, and the world.”

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington also said Law should remain in place.

The meeting, in a frescoed conference room, brought together 12 U.S. cardinals, three representatives of the U.S. bishops’ conference and eight top Vatican officials. Each of the Americans spoke for 15 minutes, with simultaneous translation into Italian available for the Vatican officials.

The top Vatican participation could make it easier for the American bishops to act collectively in June and impose binding nationwide rules for each individual bishop to follow. But it’s unclear whether such a policy would need Vatican endorsement. Church law and tradition give local bishops great leeway, particularly in the disciplining of errant priests.

Baltimore’s Cardinal William Keeler said he was “very touched” by the meeting Tuesday in the pope’s personal library. “He spoke of issues that were close to our heart when he said how moved he was, how involved he felt.”

The extraordinary meeting itself underscores that papal engagement. Normally, Vatican meetings of this importance are prepared months if not years in advance. This one was pulled together on a week’s notice.