Washington ? A board set up to monitor efforts by U.S. Catholic bishops to address the church’s sex scandal met for the first time Tuesday and sought to allay suspicions it won’t pay enough attention to victims.

The board met with four leaders of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and promised to spend part of the next meeting, scheduled for Sept. 16 in Oklahoma City, listening to victims of priestly abuse.

Peter Isely, of Milwaukee, said he and the other leaders of the victims group told the board, “You are the one group that might be able to hold bishops accountable for their behavior.”

The panel chairman, Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, said board members “want to do what we can for healing those who are abused and restoring faith to the faithful.”

Though the board has only advisory power, Keating indicated it would use publicity to put pressure on bishops guilty of past complicity in abuse or failure to apply the reform policy the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have adopted to combat abuse.

Only Pope John Paul II has the right to remove a bishop.

Keating also told reporters that lay Catholics should use “the power of the purse.” If a bishop shuns his moral duty, he said, “It’s time for the lay community of that diocese to say we’re not writing another check until things change.”

The board includes one abuse victim, ex-priest Michael J. Bland, who gave a searing account of his experience to the bishops at the June meeting in which they passed the monitoring plan that includes the review board and a protection office.

Besides Keating and Bland, the panel comprises 10 other prominent lay Catholics, including Robert S. Bennett, a Washington lawyer who represented President Clinton during the impeachment proceeding, and Leon Panetta, a former California congressman and White House chief of staff.

One major board task is to monitor the new Office for Child and Youth Protection in the bishops’ national staff. The search for its director will be led by Bennett, who wants someone with law-enforcement experience and hopes to have a recommendation by Sept. 1.