Who will guard the guardians? Ten years after the Catholic hierarchy of the United States gathered in Dallas and adopted unprecedented policies to address the scourge of child sexual abuse by clergy, the question of accountability at the top remains unanswered.

To be sure, the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People—the Dallas charter, for short—took some critical steps. In June 2002, the bishops passed a "one-strike" policy for abusers and began pushing the Vatican to streamline the processes that would allow them to more easily defrock molesters.