The U.S. Catholic bishops voted to accept the first pastoral letter against racism in almost 40 years.

A group that has been advising the U.S. bishops for 50 years on multiple issues chose to speak to the bishops in Baltimore Nov. 13 on just one issue: the clergy sexual abuse crisis itself and ways to move forward from it.

The “war to end all wars,” whose armistice took effect at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918, was a global conflagration that birthed the modern world — but it also gave birth to the national Catholic hierarchy charged with raising the place and the power of Catholics in America.

“This hypothesis—that the reality of personal sexual misconduct by bishops...was a factor which inclined some bishops not to vigorously pursue allegations of abuse among their clergy—I believe that this is a valid hypothesis.”

U.S. bishops tell the authors of a groundbreaking new book that they feel a duty to speak out on issues of the day, but they must tread carefully with a secular press and fallout from the sexual abuse crisis.

The nearly 6,000-word article examines allegations of bishops covering up sexual abuse by priests in their dioceses or their own reported sexual misconduct.