US Catholic bishops ready to crack down on abusers

After months of wriggling, the US's Roman Catholic bishops appeared yesterday to be close to agreeing a policy which fell just short of zero tolerance for priests who commit sexual abuse.

Under the likely plan, which was apparently revised after pressure from the Vatican, priests who committed an act of child abuse, or had abused children in the past, would be expelled from the priesthood.

There would, however, be provision for some abusers to voluntarily withdraw from active ministry and work in a monastery or some other restricted setting.

The vote on the proposals was expected last night.

The final draft was hammered out on a dramatic opening day of the bishops' annual conference in Dallas. The conference president, Bishop Wilton Gregory, made the most direct statement of contrition any senior figure has made since the church's paedophilia crisis began, and then invited four victims to address the gathering, at which outsiders are rarely allowed to speak.

The revised plan, complete with an option for abusers to remain within the priesthood, was back on the table despite earlier assurances by Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago, that such a policy was"unacceptable".

The conference's opening day saw a candid and moving speech from Bishop Gregory.

"In my own name and in the name of all the bishops, I express the most profound apology to each of you," he told the victims. "I am deeply and will be forever sorry for the harm you have suffered."

He said the bishops had to bear their share of responsibility. "We are the ones, whether through ignorance or lack of vigilance, or - God forbid - with knowledge, who allowed priest abusers to remain in ministry."

The scandal hit the American church with full force in January after the conviction of a Boston priest for multiple abuse. Since then, thousands of priests have been accused with varying degrees of certainty, 250 have been forced out, two have committed suicide and one has been shot.

Four bishops have quit (one after admitting affairs with women) but the highest-profile target, Cardinal Bernard Law, the archbishop of Boston, remains in office - his authority gravely weakened - amid overwhelming evidence that he had knowledge and helped shift abusers to new parishes.

David Clohessy, the director of the victims' organisation Snap (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), was one of those who addressed the bishops. Snap wants laws that would make it a crime not to report abuse, and wants the statute of limitations abolished for sex offences.

Another victim, Martin Bland, said the man who abused him was still a priest and about to start teaching at a large Catholic university.