Catholic and Enjoying It!
Sure, he doesn’t put it in so many words. But when we read:
O’Malley says cardinals’ denial of the seriousness of sexual abuse is fading
Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley said Monday that denial among some of his fellow cardinals from around the world about the seriousness of the Church’s child sexual abuse scandals, if not quite dead, has at least been driven underground — in part because of the strong example of Pope Francis.
“The fact that the Holy Father was willing to write a letter to all the bishops’ conferences calling on them to meet with victims is extremely important,” O’Malley said in an exclusive interview with Crux.
“There’s great concern (among the cardinals) and a realization the Church has to do something, but a lot of people don’t know what to do,” he said. “They’re open to listening.”
At the same time, he acknowledged that a huge gap remains in the Church’s response, especially accountability for bishops who drop the ball in making “zero tolerance” policies stick, and that the Church’s inaction to date had hurt its credibility.
You gotta shake your head. It’s been 13 *years* since the Long Lent of 2002 and cardinals are only *now* getting around to ceasing to deny that raping children is, you know, not the Done Thing and might be a tad offputting to the riff raff? It’s been 13 years and they are just waking up to this and still don’t know what to do?
Good Lord. If ever there was an illustration of the “treasures in jars of clay” phenomenon I was trying to get at in this piece, this is it.
Oh, and God bless Pope Francis! And hear our prayer on this Ash Wednesday that this filth be purged from the Church by our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine — but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight. – Hilaire Belloc
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In