Bishops weigh anti-abuse strategy after delay set by Vatican

BALTIMORE (AP) — Several Roman Catholic bishops are urging colleagues at their national meeting to take some sort of action on the clergy sex abuse crisis despite a Vatican order to delay voting on key proposals.

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, said Tuesday that "we are not branch managers of the Vatican" and that "our people are crying out for some action."

He suggested a nonbinding vote to convey a sense of the bishops' aspirations regarding anti-abuse efforts.

The three-day assembly opened Monday with a surprise announcement by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, of Galveston-Houston, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

He says the Vatican was ordering the bishops to delay votes on two anti-abuse proposals until after a Vatican-convened global meeting on sex abuse in February.