Dallas ? The president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops opened an extraordinary meeting on clerical sex abuse Thursday, calling the crisis that has battered the American church for months “perhaps the gravest we have faced.”

Bishop Wilton Gregory, in a remarkably frank speech, acknowledged the prelates’ role in creating the scandal and pledged to take action to restore parishioners’ badly shaken faith in the church hierarchy

“The crisis, in truth, is about a profound loss of confidence by the faithful in our leadership,” he said. That’s “because of our failures in addressing the crime of the sexual abuse of children and young people by priests and church personnel.”

The leader of the nation’s bishops admitted “we did not go far enough to ensure that every child and minor was safe from sexual abuse. Rightfully, the faithful are questioning why we failed to take the necessary steps.”

After Gregory’s speech, bishops were expected to hear from three people who said they were molested by priests.

Other scheduled speakers included historian R. Scott Appleby of the University of Notre Dame, editor Margaret Steinfels of the liberal Catholic magazine Commonweal, and Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea, a psychoanalyst who specializes in treating abuse victims.

Thursday afternoon the bishops take up proposals to reform the way the church handles molestation claims including zero tolerance the issue of whether to oust any priest found guilty of a single case of abuse. Those closed-door talks could continue into the evening. Public debate and action is scheduled Friday.

Since January, when the crisis began with the case of a pedophile priest in Boston, at least 250 of the nation’s 46,000 priests have resigned or been suspended over sexual misconduct claims. Four bishops also have resigned, but none have left their post because they mishandled abusive clergy.

While Gregory has repeatedly apologized for the bishops’ role in the crisis, his remarks Thursday were perhaps his most direct yet.

“We are the ones who chose not to report the criminal actions of priests to the authorities, because the law did not require this,” he said. “We are the ones who worried more about the possibility of scandal than in bringing about the kind of openness that helps prevent abuse.”

On Wednesday, the bishops listened to the wrenching personal stories of those victims of priestly molestation that in many ways prompted the meeting.

The victims pressed a radical demand: that this week’s meeting take collective action pressing the Vatican to remove bishops who kept abusive clergy on duty while ignoring warnings.

“A lot of survivors bared their hearts and bared their souls to these men. There were a lot of tears,” said one participant, David Clohessy of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., found the discussion “heartbreaking” and added, “I hope I’ve grown. I hope I will be wiser and more courageous when the committee presents its report.”

The two private sessions on Wednesday were unprecedented. So was the media briefing afterward, during which three victims bluntly presented grievances while two cardinals and an archbishop looked on.

Mark Serrano, a survivor network leader who is now 38, held up a picture of himself at age 12 and told of his rape by a priest. “Listening comes easy. Talk comes cheap. Moral action is priceless,” he said.

Serrano insisted that cardinals and bishops should be “fired or defrocked” if they failed to protect youths.

Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles said in an Associated Press interview that “I think we need to take a look at some sort of sanctions” concerning bishops, though perhaps not during this meeting.

Mahony remained adamant the other major issue, insisting that the bishops must defrock any priest guilty of past abuse.

The cardinal vowed that he and other bishops would continue that strict zero tolerance policy in their dioceses even if this week’s national meeting and the Vatican agree on a looser standard. “We’re not backing off,” he said.

Mahony also wants a national commission proposed to investigate the current crisis to work at an accelerated pace with higher status, a broader mandate and more independence from the bishops.

A committee drafting the reform package, led by Archbishop Harry Flynn of St. Paul and Minneapolis, worked late into Wednesday night on that and other amendments from bishops, 107 pages worth. The committee is supposed to release its conclusions later Thursday.

Flynn’s committee only issued its original draft for discussion June 4, an extremely tight time frame for an important Catholic policy statement.

All of the nearly 400 retired and active bishops in the United States are invited to this week’s conference, but only the active prelates who number around 285 can vote on the policy.