PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Weekly
by Tim Whitaker
Reaction is still rolling in.
Happily, all but a small fraction of it embraces the position taken in this space last week that DA Lynne Abraham and the grand jury deserve the city's admiration and gratitude for their blistering indictment of the decades-long priest molester scandal and cover-up.
The support has come most passionately from active Catholics, who cite their credentials clearly before expressing their disgust and outrage with the molesting priests and their church supervisors.
"I'm a white Republican woman-and a Catholic," said one typically infuriated caller to our offices.
Like so many, the woman went on to register her support of our hard-line discourse, encouraging us to keep railing against church leadership. Then she said the five chilling words we heard echoed all week in letters and in conversations with readers:
They still don't get it.
For weeks now Philadelphia Catholics-practicing and lapsed alike-have been living in a state of disbelief.