UNITED STATES
Crux
By John L. Allen Jr.
Editor June 3, 2016
Elsewhere on the Crux site today, Jack Valero has a piece insisting that clericalism should be consigned to the dustbins of history and the Church should fully embrace the lay role. In effect, the suggestion is that lay people “represent” the Church every bit as much as clergy, if not in terms of its teaching authority then its evangelizing mission.
That’s an argument that doubtless will resonate with many Catholics, including Pope Francis, whose distaste for clericalism is well-documented. An exclusive Crux story yesterday, however, offers an important reminder that laity have to take the bitter with the sweet: If you want to be empowered, you also have to be accountable.
In a nutshell, Austen Ivereigh reported from Peru that the head of a Church court there has written a painstaking letter documenting efforts to inform the Vatican of charges of sexual and other forms of abuse against the founder of a powerful lay movement known as the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, and expressing palpably growing outrage at the lack of a response over four years.
It was just in May that the Vatican’s Congregation for Religious finally appointed a delegate to oversee a process of reform, and it still has not imposed any ecclesiastical punishment on the founder, Luis Fernando Figari.
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