The Fish Rots From The Head

(From August, 21. 2018)

The Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report and the Catholic Church

The recently published Pennsylvania grand jury report chronicles more than 300 alleged sexual assaults on more than 1,000 victims (and likely many more) over a period of several decades. The first reasonable question to pose is: Why didn’t bishops who knew about these sex crimes report them to law enforcement? The two-fold follow-up question would be: Who at the Vatican was in charge of investigating and addressing sexual abuse cases internally, and why did concern for the victims involved not prompt them to investigate more strenuously? Yesterday the pope released a three-page letter to from the pope to “the faithful” in which he spelled out a plan to meet with victims. Pope Francis to the rescue.

This letter prompted some Catholics to rejoice. The problem. with the letter is that nothing the pope is saying about this wave of assaults and sex crimes is new. What Pope Francis offered in yesterday’s letter is a more lyrical version of what his two predecessors and many other prelates along the way have said. It is hard for me to suggest, here, that Pope Francis is a part of the problem, because I am aware that many of the most wrong-headed Catholics have been waiting for the day the “liberal” pope might be unseated.

But Pope Francis is a part of the problem, and he must act.

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