Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., was elected conference president by his fellow bishops on the first ballot, just days after announcing his diocese will go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Skylstad, who has served as conference vice president for the past three years, received 120 votes, or 52 percent of the total in a field of 10 candidates.

Chicago Cardinal Francis George was elected vice president for the next three-year term, which begins for both men at the end of this week's fall meeting of U.S. bishops.

Advocates for victims have accused Skylstad of using bankruptcy to help his diocese avoid responsibility for mishandling abuse claims against priests. He is named in several lawsuits that accuse the Spokane Diocese of covering up molestation.

However, Skylstad said last week that the amount of damages being sought in lawsuits exceeded the diocese's net worth. By month's end, he said, Spokane will become the third U.S. dio cese to file for bankruptcy; Tucson, Ariz., and Portland, Ore., already have.

Skylstad pledged to continue backing policies that protect children.

"I have no doubt that the days ahead will continue to be days of both blessings and challenges for all of us. It would be easy to be intimidated by the challenges," he said.

Separately, the executive director of the bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection, Kathleen McChesney, said she would step down in February after more than two years on the job. McChesney got the office up and running after the bishops created it to help monitor the church's response to abuse. McChesney said she felt her mission was finished.

Skylstad succeeds Bishop Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Ill., who led the conference for three years during the height of the molestation crisis. As vice president, Skylstad was at the center of the bishops' efforts to restore credibility to their leadership.

He helped Gregory represent the conference to the Vatican and he attended an emergency summit that Pope John Paul II called with U.S. church leaders in April 2002, when the scandal was spreading to every American diocese.

Asked if Catholics would trust Skylstad in that role, considering the problems in his own diocese, George said Skylstad was deeply committed to the abuse prevention plan that the bishops adopted in June 2002 in Dallas.

That policy, which is now un der review and may be revised, bars offenders from church work and created both McChesney's office and a national watchdog panel of lay people.

David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, went to Washington to protest Skylstad's candidacy.

"It feels as though bishops want to continue pretending everything is fixed," Clohessy said.

Skylstad, 70, has argued that nearly all the alleged abuse in the Spokane Diocese occurred before he became bishop in 1990. He has publicly released the names of suspected abusers, called on all victims to come forward, cooperated with law enforcement and offered to pay for victims' counseling.