WASHINGTON -- Three key issues faced the U.S. bishops as they met to deal with clergy sexual abuse of minors -- aiding the victims, dealing firmly with clerical offenders and protecting children from now on.

One major question remained unresolved before the June 13-15 meeting in Dallas: Would the bishops adopt a universal zero-tolerance policy, or would they allow some extremely limited exceptions for apparently reformed one-time past offenders?

They plainly planned to give notice that laicization will be requested for any priest who molests a child in the future and that the same fate awaits all offenders with more than one admitted or proven accusation in the past.

When the current crisis began in Boston in January, Cardinal Bernard F. Law spelled out a strict policy that not even a one-time past offender will be allowed to hold any church post again.

After he received a draft report June 6 from the Cardinal's Commission for the Protection of Children -- a blue-ribbon group he formed to advise him on sex abuse policy -- he endorsed what he called "the commission's strong recommendation for a zero-tolerance policy with no exceptions."

Cardinals William H. Keeler of Baltimore and Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles are among top churchmen who have said they will seek an across-the-board policy with no exceptions.

Cardinal Adam J. Maida of Detroit expressed concern about a blanket policy allowing no exceptions but also said the exception clause as drafted is confusing and "has to be more clearly explained, or taken out altogether."

He and others suggested that something like a life of seclusion and penance in a monastery could be an alternative to defrocking for at least some priests who have molested children.

Archbishop Harry J. Flynn of St. Paul-Minneapolis, chairman of the committee that drafted the policy, said an exception clause appeared to represent a minority position among the bishops, but the committee included it in the draft in order to put it on the on the table for debate.

Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago said he thinks there is need to allow room for some limited exceptions.

But he threw out another challenge at a press conference June 10. "There have to be sanctions for a bishop who has been negligent, the same as there are sanctions for a priest," he said. The draft documents sent to the bishops before the meeting included no sanctions for bishops who violate mandated national policy.

Never in the history of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has so much intense preparation and media attention preceded a bishops' meeting.

With only 285 voting bishops and 717 print, photo and broadcast journalists accredited by the June 1 cutoff date, the media outnumbered the bishops five to two.

Virtually everything else originally on the Dallas agenda was scuttled so the bishops could devote their time, after hearing from child abuse victims and prominent lay observers, to hammering out two key documents -- a national "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People" and legislative norms giving legal teeth to the charter in all U.S. dioceses.

Another element of the response to clerical sexual abuse, addressed in April at the special Vatican summit of cardinals and top USCCB officials, is the development of special canonical procedures to expedite the laicization of notorious serial predators and other clerics who are regarded as an ongoing danger to children. Such procedures were not included in the legislative norms designed to enforce the charter.

The topic of canonical procedures to laicize priests was up for discussion by the bishops in Dallas. Because of its complexity, however, an actual set of procedures did not appear likely to be ready for a final vote there. In that case, it would become a major topic for debate and vote at a future bishops' meeting.

Among other policies in the charter to be voted on by the bishops were:

-- Establishing a review board in every diocese, with most of its members lay people not employed by the church.

-- No more confidentiality agreements unless a victim seeks one for "grave and substantial reasons."

-- All allegations involving someone still a minor must be reported to civil authorities.

-- Creating a national USCCB office to assist and monitor diocesan implementation.

-- A national review board overseeing the national office and diocesan compliance.

-- A national research commission to study the church's response to sexual abuse.

-- "Safe environment" education and training programs in every diocese.

-- Background checks on all church workers and tougher screening of seminarians.

-- Stricter rules on background information when priests move to a different diocese.

In the week preceding the Dallas meeting many bishops asked their people to offer special prayers for its success.

Eleven ecumenical partners of the Catholic Church expressed support for what the bishops were trying to do, declaring that "all Christians must work together" to offer healing to victims and restore faith.

Indicative of the high tension surrounding the meeting was the daily-changing status of participation by representatives of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, in early June.

On June 6 SNAP announced that it was invited to meet with three cardinals just before the bishops' meeting. SNAP National Director David Clohessy also was invited to speak at the bishops' meeting itself. The same day, SNAP joined a lawsuit against the USCCB to overturn all past confidentiality agreements between the church and victims of clergy sex abuse.

The next day the USCCB announced that the lawsuit "created a barrier" to frank dialogue and precluded SNAP from participation in the bishops' plans to meet with victims. By June 9 SNAP said it would withdraw from the lawsuit, and on June 10 the USCCB said it would again consider the possibility of SNAP participation in Dallas.

The 1,400-member Catholic Theological Society of America, at its annual meeting June 7-9 in New Orleans, discussed a "white paper" on the crisis of clergy sexual abuse of minors. The discussion paper said the crisis calls for not only an immediate response to that issue itself, but also a deeper look at underlying questions: episcopal authority and how it is exercised, the implications of a "closed system" of an exclusively male and celibate clerical culture, and complex issues of "the moral, psychological and spiritual significance of human sexuality and sexual behavior as an integral part of human life."