The Roman Catholic bishops of the United States are negotiating with groups representing victims of sexual abuse by priests over whether to allow victims to speak at the bishops' annual meeting in Dallas this month, church sources say.

It would be the first time that the entire body of more than 400 American bishops has heard from abuse victims. In the 17 years since the bishops began debating the issue, victims' groups have met several times only with small groups of bishops or with the bishops' committee on sexual abuse.

"They better wear their asbestos cassocks," said the Rev. Gary Hayes, a Catholic priest in Kentucky who says he was abused by two priests as a youth and is now president of the Linkup, an advocacy group for people sexually abused by clergy. "I think they're going to hear stuff that would be pretty challenging, pretty emotional and intense."

When the bishops meet from June 13 through 15, sexual abuse will be the only issue on the agenda, said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The bishops had planned to consider a pastoral plan for Hispanics, but that has been postponed until the bishops' fall meeting, she said.

Several sources in Catholic organizations and the church said the bishops have invited an unusually large number of laypeople to speak at their meeting in Dallas. The sources said those speakers include Margaret Steinfels, editor of Commonweal, a liberal Catholic magazine based in New York; R. Scott Appleby, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame; and Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in New York and co-author of a book about treating adult survivors of sexual abuse.

The bishops have been under pressure to produce a clear national policy on sexual abuse since the issue re-emerged in January with revelations that Cardinal Bernard F. Law of Boston had quietly allowed priests who had molested minors to continue working in parishes well into the 1990s, long after bishops knew it could lead to more abuse. The headlines continued into the spring with news from around the nation that other bishops had done the same.

The bishops will not go into their meeting lacking a blueprint. On Tuesday, Archbishop Harry J. Flynn of St. Paul-Minneapolis, chairman of the bishops' committee on sexual abuse, is to hold a news briefing in Washington to introduce the proposals that the entire conference will be asked to vote on in Dallas.

Advocacy groups for victims have asked the bishops to agree to turn over all accusations of sexual abuse to civil authorities so that police can investigate. They have also asked the bishops to help lobby for laws that would amend the statutes of limitations that in many states make it nearly impossible to prosecute cases of sexual abuse that occurred years earlier.