KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter
August 21, 2018
By Pat Perriello
Despite my obsession with President Trump, the Pennsylvania grand jury report cries out for comment. The report conservatively tells us that 300 priests were involved in the sexual abuse of at least 1000 kids. Of course, we are not surprised — we’ve seen this movie before. We know about Boston. We know a bit about Ireland. We need to acknowledge that if an in-depth investigation has uncovered such activity in Pennsylvania, there is no reason to believe that the same kind of data would not be uncovered in Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta or any other area of the country. There is some talk that Attorney General Brian Frosh in Maryland is being asked to conduct such an investigation.
The first thing the church must do is accept the reality that there is a problem. Yet bishops and clergy are still attempting to say that the problem was in the past and everything is OK now. Greg Burke, Vatican spokesman, notes that most incidents occurred prior to 2002. Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh says: “The Diocese of Pittsburgh today is not the church that is described in the grand jury report … we have learned from the past.”
We all hope the church has learned from the past, and they do appear to be doing more to hold bishops accountable for being complicit in the scandal. What is needed, however, is a level of humility that is yet to be seen. Something is wrong at a fundamental level and the church cannot continue to conduct business as usual.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.