The Catholic Church should renew its effort to fight sexual abuse in a summit at the Vatican set to begin on Thursday, the leader of the Fort Worth diocese says.
Bishop Michael Olson, who leads more than 1 million Catholics in 90 parishes and missions, said he's happy with the level of transparency the church is now showing.
"I think we're talking about it -- and more than talking about it, we're acting on it," he said in an interview Tuesday. "We've had a list of credibly accused (priests) on our website for 12 years. We always call police whenever any allegation of sex abuse against anyone is brought to us."
Fort Worth's diocese first released a list of credibly accused priests in 2007.
Other Texas dioceses did the same just last month.
Some critics said the lists don't go far enough in revealing specifics like when and where the alleged crimes occurred.
But Olson said the church was trying to protect the victims.
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"Church life is very local and very familial, so transparency has its limits, precisely to protect victims' identities," he said. "And even if you state where and the details of when, often times it's easy to identify victims."
Olson said he thought sex abuse was a problem in many parts of society, not just the church. But he believed the Vatican can lead the way fighting it.
Olson is not attending the Vatican summit which is scheduled to last four days.
