UNITED STATES
The Dallas Morning News
12:00 AM CST on Friday, November 18, 2005
The U.S. Catholic bishops wrapped up their fall meeting yesterday in Washington after two days of closed-door sessions. Traditionally, the bishops don't discuss the substance of these meetings, but it's a fair guess that the fallout from the ongoing sex abuse scandal was on the secret agenda.
Recent major developments in the abuse story haven't gotten much play nationally, but they offer more sobering evidence about this crisis. In September, a Philadelphia grand jury issued a scathing report from its three-year investigation into the role that city's archdiocese played in aiding and abetting the rape of hundreds of children by pederast priests. The report placed blame "all the way to the top" – to the city's past two cardinal archbishops.
A stunnedAbuse Tracker editorialized that if ordinary Catholic males had shown the same indifference to the welfare of children as the city's Catholic leadership did, they'd be in jail.