American bishops insisted their get-tough policy on sexual abusers in the priesthood was still fully workable Friday, despite the Vatican’s demand that the plan be revamped and angry claims from victims that the church had failed them again.

The U.S. prelates hastened to downplay their differences with the Holy See on the policy they approved in June to stem the sex abuse crisis that has battered the Roman Catholic Church in America. Many said they would carry out the measures anyway.

But the Vatican said Friday that it could not give the plan its approval without significant changes. Reaching agreement may prove difficult.

Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the Vatican was troubled by aspects of the U.S. church plan to permanently oust all known abusers from their ministries and even from the priesthood.

That goes right to the crux of the policy, as does the definition of sexual abuse, which is another trouble spot.

To resolve matters, a special “mixed commission” with four U.S. bishops and representatives from four Vatican offices is being established. Gregory hopes the group will finish its work by the time all U.S. bishops assemble for a meeting Nov. 11.

“We’re dealing with basically a sound document that needs modification rather than recasting,” Gregory said at a news conference in Rome, where he has been conferring with Vatican officials all week.

While generally supporting the U.S. bishops’ efforts to stamp out clergy abuse of minors, the Vatican said the policy contained provisions that were “difficult to reconcile” with church law, were difficult to interpret and left open procedural questions that needed to be resolved.

“For these reasons it has been judged appropriate that before the ‘recognitio’ (Vatican approval) can be granted, a further reflection on and revision of the ‘Norms’ and the ‘Charter’ are necessary,” said the response, signed by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Congregation of Bishops.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, D.C., said he intended to keep adhering to the policy. “We’re in no way pulling back from what we were doing” to rid the clergy of abusers in his archdiocese, he said, and he expected bishops across the nation would do likewise.

Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, N.J. said the response “clearly states the Vatican’s support” for the steps the American bishops have taken so far. And Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George said Rome merely wanted “to talk to us about clarifying a few of the details. … What we have is an acceptance with a few qualifications.”

But Chicagoan Barbara Blaine, founder of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the church’s attempt at reform was a failure.

“Make no mistake about it: Rome’s bureaucrats have rejected the weak measures bishops adopted in Dallas and our children are at risk as a result,” she said, claiming that the Vatican had “gutted” the policy and “we’re now back at square one.”