Cardinal Timothy Dolan announced Thursday that the Archdiocese of New York is hiring special counsel and an independent reviewer in response to the sexual abuse crisis within the Catholic Church.

Dolan says many parishioners and priests are calling this the "summer of hell" with regard to the recent report from a grand jury in Pennsylvania that detailed decades of abuse by priests.

Dolan says former federal judge and prosecutor Barbara Jones has already started an initial review of the archdiocese. She will look at the effectiveness of whether the archdiocese has followed existing protocol in addressing reports of abuse and recommend changes or even new policies and procedures.

Dolan also stressed that the archdiocese still encourages all potential abuse victims to come forward.

At Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx, there were reports that Father John T. Meehan committed multiple instances of sexual misconduct against a teen in the early 1980s. That case was settled as part of program with the Archdiocese of New York.