UNITED STATES
She Knows
by Theresa Edwards
I like Pope Francis.
In our home, he goes primarily by his unofficial title: His Holiness Pope Coolpants. He reminds me of another old Catholic dude I was extremely fond of, my grandfather, and his willingness to say things that Catholics don’t really like to hear (gays are people/birth control pills — turns out they’re not the Devil’s Smarties) endears him greatly to me, an ex-Catholic who can still recite the Act of Contrition and has a box full of saint trading cards. I’m still looking for St. Tekakwitha, if anyone can hook a lapsie up.
Which is why it pains me to say that even when he comes out with more Coolpants fodder — like he did this weekend by saying Christians ought to apologize for the way they’ve treated the gay community and exploited women and children and poor people, and then throwing a scold in there over Brexit — I’m reminded all over again that his trousers will never be fully chill until he addresses the Catholic Church’s greatest shame.
I am talking, of course, about the decades-long child abuse scandal that spanned multiple countries and resulted — just in the United States — in more than 10,000 allegations made toward nearly 5,000 men of the cloth in the church I was raised in.
To be fair, Pope Francis has publicly announced that the church will no longer be tolerating pedophile priests and the bishops who shelter them, which whew — how refreshing. He’s also defrocked a few particular baddies and excommunicated a couple of monsters, which wow — super cool of him.
It’s still not enough.
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