When Zero Isn't Enough

By John Cloud

There are signs the vatican has little tolerance for zero tolerance. The Holy See last week finally responded to the plan U.S. bishops devised in June for handling abusive priests. Rome wants "further reflection on and revision of" the proposal, which says any priest found to have ever sexually abused a minor, even once, can never minister again.

Back in June, dissenting U.S. church leaders said the zero-tolerance proviso casts aside notions of forgiveness and redemption, but they didn't carry the day. Now Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, who heads a key Vatican office that will help write the final policy, is echoing the disagreement. He said at a press conference on Friday that the bishops slighted "fundamental principles of the church," including "conversion," the basic idea that sinners can change.

But back in the U.S., reformers seemed to have little patience for appeals to Canon law. Says Mike Emerton of Voice of the Faithful, a group that grew out of dismay over the church's mishandling of Boston abusers: "[The Vatican] shows they have no understanding of the depth of this problem." --By John Cloud. Reported by Jeff Israely/Rome and Maggie Sieger/Chicago

With reporting by Jeff Israely/Rome and Maggie Sieger/Chicago