PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Tom Ferrick Jr.
Inquirer Columnist
The archdiocese's campaign to discredit the Philadelphia grand jury's report on priests who sexually abused children has landed with a thud.
No one is buying it.
Not the public. Not most Roman Catholic clergy. More important, not the 1.4 million-plus Catholics in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
They do not believe the grand jury convened by District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham was a biased, vile, anti-Catholic Inquisition, to summarize the church's lawyers' line.
They do not believe Cardinal Justin Rigali's assertion that the church has reformed and has in place the procedures to assure this never happens again.
They are not placated by Rigali's mea culpa letter that was circulated or read in parishes over the weekend.
They are furious at the five dozen priest/abusers revealed in last week's grand jury report.
But they correctly see this as two tales intertwined: one about human frailty, the other about the institutional failings.
Which makes them even angrier at the diocesan hierarchy - including Cardinals John Krol and Anthony J. Bevilacqua - for their handling of the cases, also known as the cover-up.
As one Catholic I talked to aptly put it: "The cardinals didn't attack the kids, but they drove the getaway cars."