Washington, D.C., attorney Robert Bennett was part of the 13-member board of prominent lay Catholics appointed by the U.S. Catholic bishops to investigate the sexual abuse crisis. He chaired the research committee that interviewed some 100 victims, psychiatrists, theologians, seminary heads and church officials and prepared the report on causes of abuse.

DignityUSA “works for respect and justice for all gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender persons in the Catholic Church” and elsewhere. Contact executive director Marianne Duddy-Burke.

SNAP, or the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the foremost advocacy group for clergy abuse victims. SNAP has regional directors and local support groups. Contact President Barbara Blaine in Chicago.

The Chicago-based National Federation of Priests’ Councils is the leading voice for the nation’s Catholic priests. Contact the president, Father Anthony E. Cutcher.

Bettina Arnold is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and author of “Justifying Genocide: The Supporting Role of Archaeology in ‘Ethnic Cleansing’” for the book Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide (University of California Press, 2002).

Lawrence J. LeBlanc is professor of political science at Marquette University in Milwaukee and author of The United States and the Genocide Convention (Duke University Press, 1991). He specializes in international politics, international law and organizations, and U.S. foreign policy.

Eric D. Weitz is a history professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis-St. Paul and author of A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation (Princeton University Press, 2005).

Michael A. Sells is professor of Islamic history and literature at the University of Chicago. He has written on genocide in Bosnia in the context of Islamic belief.

Rabbi Peter J. Haas is a Jewish studies professor and director of the Rosenthal Center for Judaic Studies at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He wrote Human Rights and the World’s Major Religions: The Jewish Tradition (Greenwood Press, 2005).