A panel of bishops that drafted a national discipline policy on Roman Catholic priests who molest children said Friday that a survey found most dioceses were implementing the three-month-old plan.
Most bishops said they had formed a review board mainly of lay people, had crafted a written policy on responding to abuse and had procedures for publicly revealing complaints against priests, the committee said.
However, the report did not say whether bishops were complying with a key part of the reforms that has met the most resistance: removing guilty clergy from church work and, in some cases, the priesthood altogether.
The committee also did not identify which dioceses had failed to implement provisions of the policy. Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, spokesman for the bishops' conference, did not return messages left at his office and home late Friday.
Dioceses are under intense scrutiny over whether they have adopted the plan the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops approved in June to stem the clerical sex abuse crisis plaguing the American church.
Victim advocates said they have evidence that 13 of the 195 U.S. dioceses were not following the policy. The National Review Board, the panel of lay persons the bishops appointed to evaluate how dioceses handle abuse claims, planned to soon release its own findings.
Several bishops have said they will not try to oust abusers from the priesthood until the Vatican approves the plan. However, the bishops' conference insisted most dioceses were in compliance.
Archbishop Harry Flynn, chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse which wrote the policy, released a statement saying he found the results of the survey "very encouraging." Many of the dioceses that had not implemented parts of the plan, such as forming a review board, said they planned to do so by year's end, the committee said.
Some dioceses said lack of funding and small diocesan staffs had slowed their efforts, and others said they were still seeking advice on implementing parts of the plan, the committee said.
Nine dioceses did not respond to the panel's questionnaire.
The report found:
_ 179 dioceses had written policies on handling abuse and five more planned to do so soon. One diocese said it did not have one, but did not say why and another diocese did not answer.
_ 156 dioceses had procedures for publicly revealing complaints and the rest planned to develop such procedures by the end of the year. One diocese did not answer.
_ 149 dioceses formed review boards and another 25 planned to do so by the end of the year. No details were given on the plans for the remaining 12 dioceses.
_ 133 had hired a staff person to assist abuse victims and another 24 planned to do so by the end of the year. Another 28 said they had not hired one. One diocese did not answer.
_ 105 planned to report old claims to civil authorities. The bishops had pledged to report claims that children were being abused, but the majority of claims now are being made by adults who said they were molested years and even decades ago.