OKLAHOMA CITY -- Former Gov. Frank Keating of Oklahoma could step down as soon as Tuesday as chairman of a panel monitoring the U.S. Catholic Church's efforts to resolve an ongoing sexual abuse crisis.

According to the Los Angeles Times, a majority of the 13-member board of Catholic laypeople agreed that it was time for Keating to resign after he gave an interview in early June, in which he said some unnamed bishops were Mafia-like in their willingness to cover up the denomination's leadership wrongdoings.

According to the report, while Keating's critics cheered, some victims' advocates fear it signals the church won't get to the bottom of the growing scandal.

Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine monk and an expert on sexual abuse in the church, criticized church officials such as Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony for pressuring Keating to step down. Sipe compared the situation to former President Nixon's firing of the special prosecutor appointed to investigate the Watergate scandal.

"Keating was speaking truth to power -- that part of the church cannot accept the truth," Sipe said. "I think it's going to boomerang just as Nixon's defense boomeranged on him."

But others, such as 78-year-old San Diego churchgoer Ann Hall, said Keating's remarks showed he was out of touch with the church mainstream that still respects its ordained hierarchy.

"I say thanks be to the almighty," Hall said Sunday. "We've all been very disturbed by the abuse scandal ... but to me, (Keating) is rather insensitive to his environment, somehow."

The Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit-run magazine America, praised Keating for establishing his independence from church leadership. But Keating's comments, he said, "are not part of the culture of American bishops. They're always very polite and gentlemanly toward one another."

"I'm sad to see him go," Reese said. "It's too bad he couldn't control his mouth."

Although Keating has lost the support of some of the review board, board member Ray Siegfried said Sunday that he would urge Keating to reconsider his decision to step down.

"Just because somebody is irritated about what Frank said is not a reason, in my view, to have him depart, because this is not a controversy," Siegfried said. "It (sexual abuse) is an actuality … and … Frank and the rest of the board were not guilty of the sins of the child abusers, so why should we suffer any punishment for doing what we've been asked (by the bishops) to do?"