By Cliff Dunn

On Feb. 6, Roman Catholic Church officials convened for a four-day conference about preventing the sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy. The symposium is an historic one, attended by 200 delegates and described by church leaders as an effort to respond to a volatile issue that has plagued the world’s largest Christian denomination for decades.

“We need to help each other find the best ways to help victims, protect children,” said Cardinal William Levada, who oversees the Vatican office that investigates allegations of clerical abuse. In a keynote address to an audience that included more than 100 bishops and 30 superiors of religious orders, as well as victims of clergy abuse, Levada said the goal of the conference was for priests “to be aware of this scourge and to eliminate it from the priesthood.”

Pope Benedict XVI, leader of the world’s one billion Roman Catholics, expressed the hope that “many bishops and religious superiors throughout the world may be helped to respond in a truly Christ- like manner to the tragedy of  child abuse.”

The conference, titled “Towards Healing and Renewal,” was meant as a response to allegations that the Vatican has been negligent and inefficient in fostering policies that definitively address the sexual abuse crisis. The crisis has led to unprecedented criticism from even faithful Roman Catholics, as well as a complaint filed against the church with the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands.

Terence McKiernan, a vocal critic of the church’s handling of the abuse scandals and president of BishopAccountability.org, called the conference a publicity stunt by Vatican officials designed to “change the subject and look like progress. The Vatican is afraid, and it has reason to be,” said McKiernan in reference to the criminal complaint filed with The Hague.

Officials have made an effort at transparency in addressing the challenges the church faces. “We have to realize that there are many different attitudes on the part of church leaders, that there is no one Church, that there are forces who resist and those who work for the betterment of the situation,” Father Hans Zollner of the Gregorian University said at a news conference prior to the symposium. “Our aim is to support those forces and change attitudes and dealing with abuse.”

The Vatican has been accused of using its influence with secular officials in an effort to mitigate the allegations of criminal and sociopathic behavior by priests and church leaders. The Vatican’s point-man on the abuse scandal, Monsignor Charles Scicluna, told reporters that abusing children is “a sin” as well as “a crime, and the Church has a duty to cooperate with civil society and with its just requests for cooperation to prevent the crime.”

In spite of Vatican assurances, critics of the priestly sex scandal need more convincing that the church is doing everything it can  to bring a dark chapter in its  2,000-year-old history to a  definitive conclusion.

“Bishops pat themselves on the back by doing training programs and education as though that were the problem,” said Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests, or Snap. “Lack of knowledge is not what causes abuse but lack of courage and decisions on the part of  church officials.”

“They should be turning over known predators to the police and removing them from ministries, and they should be informing the public of their identity,” Blaine added. “If they did that, it would be far easier for us to believe that there was a real intent in protecting children.”