KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter
July 20, 2018
By Mary E. Hunt
The Academy Award-winning movie “Spotlight” offered a summary of the first part of what I predict will be a Catholic trifecta of disgrace. “Spotlight” showed priests abusing minors and clerical higher-ups covering for them, making for a grim, ongoing tale of betrayal and corruption.
The second aspect came into sharp focus in Laurie Goodstein and Sharon Otterman’s recent Pulitzer-worthy article, “He Preyed on Men Who Wanted to Be Priests. Then He Became a Cardinal” in which they spell out the dastardly deeds of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. The authors made clear that McCarrick’s sexual exploits were many, widely known, and just as widely ignored on his way to a red hat.
The third leg of this trifecta remains unexplored, but I predict/believe it will soon explode onto the scene: some priests’ use and abuse of women.
The first, we can call it the “Spotlight” phase, is now well documented. It cost several billion dollars, ruined many young lives, took other lives, and left a trail of destruction through generations of believers. The second moment, just opening in the public forum, is the chronicle of how priests preyed on (not prayed for) one another in a hierarchal system with few checks and balances against such abuse. Apparently getting ordained and promoted was not just a matter “who you know,” as it were …
The New York Times reporters detail the apparently well-known M.O. of McCarrick as a serial creep. He chose his bedmates out of groups of available seminarians, invited others to share his New York pied-à-terre in a hospital (now there’s a unique place for a tryst), and used a fishing cabin for similar purposes.
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