PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Daily Times
The sex-abuse scandal currently engulfing the Archdiocese of Philadelphia smoldered for decades before erupting in the conflagration contained in the 400-plus pages of a scathing report issued by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office. It is not going to go away overnight.
That point now should be abundantly clear to the man who heads the archdiocese, and its 1.5-million member flock. Even if it was not at the time the bombshell report was released.
Some of the faithful are questioning their faith. They are stunned, disappointed and outraged at the scope of the scandal, the way the archdiocese handled it, and its response to the grand jury report.
They want answers.
Monday night they went looking for Cardinal Rigali. They found him at Villanova University, at a previously scheduled speech on Catholic higher education.
The cardinal spoke for 90 minutes, often touching on "human dignity." But some of those who attended had other lessons in mind. And they turned the cardinal’s own words against him.
One woman indicated the cardinal mentioning human dignity "put me over the edge" in the wake of the report that detailed hundreds of cases of child sexual abuse at the hands of priests, and overwhelming evidence that archdiocesan leaders covered up the situation, in some instances actually enabling it through a policy of removing problem priests and relocating them to other parishes.