CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
Dennis Byrne, a Chicago-area writer and consultant
Published March 27, 2006
For many Roman Catholics, the latest round of disclosures about pedophile priests in the Chicago archdiocese is the end of their patience with an institution that is incapable of or unwilling to change.
For other Catholics, it is further confirmation of a sad reality that has frustrated their attempts to wake up a hierarchy that is too deaf, smug or self-serving.
For non-Catholics, the failure to move against men who still victimize children, years after allegations against the clergy became widely known, is as much of a mystery as an outrage.
For Catholics who have tried to deny these sins of their fathers, it's time for them to examine their own consciences.
Here we are, years after church leaders promised reforms, and a new report surfaces accusing the archdiocese of, as the Chicago Tribune put it, "botching" the job of protecting children from clerical pedophiles. The independent and expert report, commissioned by the church (at least give it credit for that, as well as hanging its dirty linen out in public), enumerated shocking failure after failure: