The U.S. bishops overwhelmingly approved a statement against racism Nov. 14 that declares “racist acts are sinful because they violate justice.”

In what was expected to be a dramatic show of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) fight against clerical sex abuse, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, USCCB president, announced that the Holy See had requested a delay on such measures until after a Vatican summit on the scandal next February.

A Vatican request that the U.S. bishops postpone voting on several proposals to address abuse was a disappointment but they “quickly took a deep breath” and realized they could still have a productive discussion about the measures, said New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan.

As the U.S. Bishops’ Conference met for the second day of their fall general assembly, the case of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick emerged as a unifying concern, in a conference otherwise fragmented in its response to the clerical sexual abuse crisis.

As the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) attempted to salvage its agenda following Monday’s news that the Vatican had requested a postponement of a vote on new measures of bishop accountability, Tuesday’s meeting began with a critical assessment of the current state of transparency and reform.

Following Monday’s shock announcement that the Vatican has requested the U.S. Catholic Bishops to delay voting on new standards for bishop accountability, survivors of sexual abuse and bishop accountability activists decried the move as a “totally unacceptable.”

Addressing the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) at the closely watched meeting in June 2002, as the first wave of clergy sexual abuse crisis in the U.S. reached its zenith, then-president Bishop Wilton Gregory promoted new measures of reform and accountability “in a way that ensures it will not happen again.”