MICHIGAN
Battle Creek Enquirer
TOM WATKINS, GUEST COMMENTARY
Pope Francis inspires me with his message of hope and human decency. His words take me back to my childhood when I was in awe of the church and its teachings.
I learned about love, decency and justice from the nuns, priests and lay people who taught and guided me in my early years of Catholic school education.
Pope Francis gets it even as it seemed to me that the Catholic Church lost its moorings in past decades, spending more time on social moralizing, even as it neglected the teachings of Jesus about caring for the poor and the “least among us.” Pope Francis is a true champion of the poor and a force for positive change in the world.
Yet, to date, the pope has yet to do enough to wash away the child sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.
While Pope Francis has said many things that need to be said about this scandal, he has not gone far enough to address the tentacles of evil that remain. If there are “unforgivable sins,” sexually abusing a child is one. It is wrong morally, spiritually and legally. Yet if there is such a thing as a “worse sin” or a greater crime, it is reserved for those higher up in the church hierarchy, who concealed and covered up this evil. …
“Spotlight,” the Academy Award winning movie about child sexual abuse by priests in America, shone a bright light on this scandal within the Catholic Church.
The BishopAccountablity.com website that tracks reports of sexual abuse in the Church concludes that more than 17,200 Americans have alleged they were abused by more than 6,400 clerics from 1950 to 2013. These are startling numbers and show the depth of the problem and cover-up.
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