Vatican City ? After an extraordinary meeting sparked by a sex abuse scandal, American Roman Catholic leaders agreed Wednesday to make it easier to remove priests guilty of sexually abusing minors but they stopped short of a zero-tolerance policy to dismiss all abusive clerics.

The American church leaders said they would recommend a special process to defrock any priest who has become “notorious and is guilty of the serial, predatory sexual abuse of minors.” In cases that are “not notorious” they would leave it up to the local bishop to decide whether such a priest is a threat to children and should be defrocked.

Pope John Paul II reads his message to American cardinals gathered in his private library in Vatican City. U.S. church leaders expressed their regret about the sex abuse cases coming to light in the United States, but they stopped short of recommending a zero-tolerance policy for priests accused of abuse.

The statement came at the end of two days of talks between American cardinals and top bishops, with Vatican officials aiming to stem the sex abuse scandal engulfing the U.S. church. The church leaders will take their recommendations to a meeting of U.S. bishops in June to draw up a policy on dealing with abusive priests.

Weaker recommendation

But the final statement was less than the blanket order for the dismissal of all abusive priests that some had sought, nor did it make specific proposals for the reporting of sex abuse crimes to authorities. Several cardinals had suggested they had wanted stronger language about the need to turn over offenders to civil authorities, indicating major battles lie ahead when all U.S. bishops gather in Dallas in June.

The reference to “serial” attacks appeared to contradict a statement earlier Wednesday by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, who indicated that the American cardinals meeting with Pope John Paul II reached consensus on a “one-strike-and-you’re-out” policy that would dismiss any priest involved in a future sex abuse case.

After a marathon final session that delayed announcement of the final statement by two hours, four church officials appeared at a press briefing. Also on the panel were U.S. bishops’ head Wilton Gregory, bishop of Belleville, Ill.; Cardinal James Francis Stafford, an American who is president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity at the Vatican; and Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls.

Taking a break from meeting with American cardinals, Pope John Paul II has his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square. The cardinals ended their summit Wednesday, stopping short of calling for zero tolerance for sexual abuse.

U.S. church officials had indicated that many if not all the cardinals would attend. Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, spokesmen for the U.S. bishops, said that because the meeting ran more than two hours late, the remaining cardinals had other engagements.

“In other words, we talk too much,” said McCarrick.

Many of the phrases in the document were crafted from John Paul’s strong message to the prelates, calling sex abuse against minors a crime and a sin and saying there was no room in the church for sex abusers. He spoke at the opening session and lunched with all the participants Wednesday.

‘Too great a risk’

“There is a growing consensus certainly among the faithful, among the bishops, that it is too great a risk to assign a priest who has abused a child to another ministry,” Gregory told reporters.

On another issue troubling the American church following the wave of scandals, the church leaders declared that “a link between celibacy and pedophilia cannot be scientifically maintained.” The group, as expected, reaffirmed priestly celibacy.

The statement, following up on the pope’s speech to the cardinals Tuesday, said sexual abuse of minors was “rightly considered a crime by society,” but it mentioned no specific proposal about reporting all cases to authorities.

It also drew a distinction on the age of those who suffered sexual abuse, saying “attention was drawn to the fact that almost all cases involved adolescents and therefore were not cases of true pedophilia.”

Many victims’ advocates in the United States said the church had never kept its promise to crack down on misconduct by the clergy and that this would be no different.

“Historically, there has been and there remains a huge gap between what bishops say and what bishops do,” said Barbara Blaine of Chicago, founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “Their promises sound good, but their performance is lacking.”

New guidelines

The church leaders will ask the full bishops conference to approve a set of national standards in sexual abuse cases that will be imposed on every bishop and diocese a major break with tradition, in which bishops have great power in applying punishment.

However, the document left many matters open to be debated by the bishops in June.

McCarrick outlined a process in which an accused priest would be put on what he compared to “administrative leave” and removed from clerical duties while the case was investigated.

“We want to be just even with a priest who offends,” said Gregory, adding that an accused priest “enjoys rights until a decision is made.”

“We want to move expeditiously, but we want to move correctly,” he told reporters.

Speaking to CNN, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago said the new process would allow bishops for the first time to attempt to remove a priest against the priest’s will something the pope has been reluctant to back because of fears bishops could use the power indiscriminately.

“The pope doesn’t want decisions like that to be administrative; he lived as he told us again and again in a communist state where administrative law was misused against human rights,” George said.

Even with the proposed new special process in cases of abuse, “there are going to be a lot of provisions in there for appeal and certitude that the rights of all parties are protected,” he said.

Expressing regret

Before issuing their statement, the U.S. church leaders expressed in a letter to American priests their regret for failing to prevent the sex abuse scandal and pledging to support the priests “in every possible way through these troubled times.”

“We know the heavy burden of sorrow and shame that you are bearing because some have betrayed the grace of ordination by abusing those entrusted to their care,” they said. “We regret that episcopal oversight has not been able to preserve the church from this scandal.”

The Vatican meeting was called in an effort to resolve a scandal that has rocked the American Church since January, leading to the resignation of one bishop, raising calls that Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston also resign and costing the church millions of dollars in legal settlements.

Asked if the pope supports Law, Navarro-Valls said he didn’t have enough information to comment.

“The situation regarding Cardinal Law is a matter that belongs exclusively to the Holy Father and to Cardinal Law,” Gregory said. “It is not a matter that could be judged or adjudicated in a conversation such as took place.”

The cardinals said the two days of meeting did not discuss Law.

Though America is in the spotlight, several cardinals commented earlier that it was not only a U.S. problem. Recent scandals have hit the church in Austria, Ireland, France, Australia and the pope’s native Poland.

Pope’s influence

Earlier Wednesday, McCarrick told reporters there was no doubt what the pope had intended when he opened the gathering Tuesday. The pontiff said “there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young.”

The pope repeated his positions when he sat down for a lunch of pasta, meat, vegetables and wine with the U.S. delegation on Wednesday, McCarrick said.

In his address Tuesday, the frail, 81-year-old John Paul recognized the damage the scandal has caused the church. “Many are offended at the way in which the church’s leaders are perceived to have acted,” the pontiff said.

Using his strongest language yet, the pope laid out the agenda at the outset by decrying abuse both as an “appalling sin” and a crime against society.

His phrasing seemed to say U.S. bishops should refer abuse accusations against priests to secular authorities. In the past, some bishops have not, causing an uproar.