Philadelphia:
The Philadelphia archdiocese suspended 21 Roman Catholic priests on Tuesday who were named as child molestation suspects in a scathing grand jury report last month.
It is a decision that comes more than eight years after US bishops pledged swift action to keep potential abusers away from young people.
The priests have been removed from ministry while their cases are reviewed, Cardinal Justin Rigali said.
The names of the priests have not been released, a spokesman for the archdiocese said.
"These have been difficult weeks since the release of the grand jury report," Rigali said in a statement. "Difficult most of all for victims of sexual abuse but also for all Catholics and for everyone in our community."
The two-year grand jury investigation into priest abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia resulted in charges against two priests, a former priest and a Catholic school teacher who are accused of raping young boys.
And in an unprecedented move in the US, a former high-ranking church official was accused of transferring problem priests to new parishes without warning anyone of prior sex-abuse complaints.
"Clearly, the grand jury report presented extremely serious concerns," said Donna Farrell, the Director of Communications for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
"From the very beginning, when the report was released on February 10th, the cardinal has stated that he takes those concerns very seriously. He is demonstrating that with his actions today."
Since 2002, when the national abuse crisis erupted in the Archdiocese of Boston, American dioceses have barred hundreds of accused clergy from public church work or removed them permanently from the priesthood.
The actions of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia stand out because they occurred years after the US bishops reformed their national child protection policies.
The grand jury named 37 priests who remained in active ministry despite credible allegations of sexual abuse.
After the release of the report, the second such investigation in the city in six years, Rigali vowed to take its calls for further reforms seriously.
In addition to the 21 priests placed on leave on Tuesday, three others named by the grand jury were suspended a week after the report's release in February.
There were five other priests who would have been suspended -- one who was already on leave, two who are "incapacitated and have not been in active ministry," and two who no longer are priests in the archdiocese but are now members of another religious order that was not identified.
"The archdiocese has notified the superiors of their religious orders and the bishops of the dioceses where they are residing," the cardinal said.
The remaining eight priests of the 37 in the report were not being put on leave because the latest examination of their cases "found no further investigation is warranted," Rigali said.
"I know that for many people their trust in the church has been shaken," Rigali stated. "I pray that the efforts of the archdiocese to address these cases of concern and to re-evaluate our way of handling allegations will help rebuild that trust."
While the archdiocese formed a panel to handle abuse complaints after the 2005 report, the 2011 grand jury found it mostly worked to protect the church, not the victims.
Rigali responded by retaining former city child-abuse prosecutor Gina Maisto Smith to re-examine complaints made against the active-duty priests that internal church investigators previously said they could not substantiate.
"What I can say is that the district attorney's office has all of these names, has all of the violations, and will continue to get information on these cases," said Smith.
The suspensions came on the eve of Lent, the Christian period for penance leading up to Easter.
The President of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), Barbara Blaine, helped stage a protest on Tuesday in Philadelphia against abuse by priests after the Archdiocese' decision was announced.
She is calling on the church to make public the names of all 21 suspended priests.
"Basically, I think Cardinal Rigali is taking minimal steps, and his focus is still on protecting the reputation of the archdiocese and not the children," said Blaine.
"The fact that Cardinal Rigali is announcing removing 21, temporarily protects children. But at the same time, we believe this kind of action is reckless and irresponsible."
She added that the names of the alleged predators, "should be made public so that parents and employers can be warned and keep the children away from these men."