Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan and Bishop Joseph L. Bernardin will be among the members of the U.S. hierarchy who will meet in Washington Nov. 14-18, for the first time since the end of the Second Vatican Council.

The members of the hierarchy - made up of 261 cardinals, archbishops, bishops and auxiliary bishops -- will consider the implementation of changes decreed by the world assembly of bishops which met in Rome in four sessions from 1962 through 1965.

Preparatory work for the meeting has been done by a bishops’ committee on reorganization, which met several times during the year. The administrative board of the National Catholic Welfare Conference met with the reorganization committee on Oct. 5 to review recommendations.

At the Oct. 5 meeting it was also decided that news conferences would be held during the week of the bishops’ meeting. The conferences are being arranged by the NCWC Bureau of Information, and invitations will be issued to a limited number of the members of the general press. Bishops who are members of various commissions will be on hand to meet with the press. This will be the first time that news conferences will be held in connection with the Catholic bishops’ annual meeting.

The bishops will revise the statutes of their national Episcopal conference in the light of conciliar developments. As a result of the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church is embarked on a world-wide decentralization program by which national bodies share in some of the powers hitherto reserved to the Holy See.

The National Catholic Welfare Conference -- which has served as a general secretariat of the American bishops since 1919 -- will be reorganized and renamed.