Archbishop José Gomez, the de facto head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) as the body’s president, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, faces health issues, will travel to Rome the week after Easter to meet Vatican officials to discuss new measures for U.S. bishop accountability.

Crux has confirmed with multiple sources, who spoke under the condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to comment on the matter, that a USCCB delegation, originally intended to be led by DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, will discuss proposals for accountability that the U.S. bishops hope to adopt when they meet again in June.

Monsignor Brian Bransfield, general secretary of the USCCB, along with other senior officials, will join Gomez, the archbishop of Los Angeles, for the visit.

Last month DiNardo was briefly hospitalized for what was termed a “mild stroke.” Gomez is currently responsible for day-to-day operations of the USCCB while the Texas cardinal is recovering.

He said that following a March administrative committee meeting of the USCCB, a delegation would travel to Rome to present the developing proposals in order to avoid a repeat of what happened last November when the Vatican quashed previous plans for a vote, stating that the proposals lacked the necessary accordance with canon law and that the U.S. bishops’ had not given adequate time for Vatican review.

DiNardo told Crux that prior to putting any new policy up for a vote, it would be necessary to “take a quick visit to Rome” as “we don’t want to see what happened before.”

Full story at Angelus News.