Anne Burke and Bob Bennett Go to Rome ...

"Anne Burke and Bob Bennett Go to Rome, Meet with then Cardinal Ratzinger, Craft a Comprehensive Report. Objective Accomplished—but Will the Bishops, Hamstrung by Bureaucracy, Implement? Not That Bunch"

From Roeser Blog, including an account of their trip, as members of the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People, to the Vatican where they met with Cardinals Arinze and Ratzinger.

News of their meeting with the two cardinals got back to the United States almost instantaneously. The second Burke walked into her judicial office, her secretary handed her a flock of notes to call Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the USCCB.

"You are entitled to know," said the bishop in his grave way, "that even bishops who go to Rome for such meetings are required to clear them with this office."

"I am sure," said Justice Burke. "But then as you know, we are not bishops."

The conversation thereafter was professional but brief.