A watchdog lay panel appointed by U.S. Roman Catholic bishops will send auditors to every diocese to see if they are complying with the new sex abuse policy the bishops adopted last year.
The audit will be conducted by the Gavin Group of Boston, a firm run by William Gavin, a former FBI (director, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced.
More than 50 auditors were trained last month to conduct the checks in the nation's 195 dioceses. Operating in teams of two, they will determine whether bishops have formed boards that include lay people to review sex abuse claims, hired victim-assistance coordinators and started education programs meant to protect children from abuse.
No auditor will be permitted to audit his own diocese if he or she is a Catholic, the bishops' conference said. The dioceses' policies and actions before the policy was adopted will not be part of the review.
Monsignor Walter Hurley, the top church official on abuse cases for in Detroit, said his archdiocese was scheduled to be among the first to undergo an audit.
The lay panel, called the National Review Board, is also conducting a series of studies to determine the scope and roots of the crisis.