The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York has announced it is releasing all victims of sexual abuse by its priests from confidentiality agreements they may have made.
An undisclosed number of victims countrywide have signed such agreements over the years when reaching private civil settlements with the Church.
People who were sexually molested as children by members of the priesthood have said that action agreed by American cardinals who met Pope John-Paul II in Rome does not go far enough.
As the New York Archdiocese made its announcement on confidentiality agreements, it was also taking court action to prevent the release of documents concerning another child sex abuse scandal in Connecticut.
New York's Cardinal, Edward Egan, is under mounting criticism for the role he played in allegedly covering up the scandal while he was a bishop there.
In another development in New York, a bishop in the suburb of Long Island announced that he was abandoning the Church policy of moving abusive priests into jobs where they had no contact with children.
Instead, he said, they will be removed from the ministry altogether.
Pope John Paul II said he was "heartbroken" by the spiralling number of abuse cases in the Church in America.
After meeting the Pope, the US cardinals appeared to be moving towards a policy of sacking offending priests, but a final decision will not be taken until a meeting in June.
A BBC correspondent in New York, Jane Standley, says it is clear that regret expressed in Rome will not be enough for people back home in the United States.
'Police, not bishops'
A victims' advocate who was himself molested as a child has said that police, not bishops, should be in charge of dealing with offenders.
David Clohessy, director of the Chicago-based Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests (Snap), told the BBC that superiors of the abusers had moved them around to hide the crimes.
"The bishops still want to be the umpires," Mr Clohessy said.
"But this is not a ball game, these are real crimes, and abuse charges need to be handled by professionals, which in this case are police and prosecutors."
Some victims fear that too many clergy and laity will assume the matter is being addressed and simply hope that the problem will go away.
"It won't - it's a deeply seated, a deeply rooted problem that's very widespread in the Church," Mr Clohessy said.
Bishops' dilemma
One key issue for the clergy is whether to deal only with repeat offenders or to adopt a "zero-tolerance" policy whereby priests could be sacked after their first misdemeanour.
Cardinal Egan has spoken about the difficulties of assessing allegations against a priest.
"Do you immediately walk away from that person - can you [presume] that he is accused and therefore he is guilty?" he asked.
"One bishop may say 'I think he is a pretty fine fellow and I want to look into this before I make any decision'.
"Another might say 'I want to send him away for psychological studies to see what experts say'."