Trust betrayed

The NCR reported last week that Fr. James Connell, vice-chancellor of the Diocese of Milwaukee Wisconsin diocese, had publicly spoken from the pulpit and apologized to his parishioners on November 13-14 for his failure to address the issue of clerical pedophilia. His remarks evinced the frustration felt by many priests about the scandals of the last decade. Hopefully many more priests will follow his lead. Many of the abuses predate that period but the public revelation of the scandals, not just the abuse but the prevarications and outright lies by members of the hierarchy at every level in covering up the crimes of their fellow priests and bishops, is what is most heinous and most distressing to the ordinary Catholic.

Some apologists try to excuse these crimes by saying that it was a different time with different standards. The same argument would justify the massacre at Wounded Knee, lynchings by the Klan, Nero’s persecutions or the Holocaust. Let’s just stop a minute and think things through to their logical conclusion.