MASSACHUSETTS
The Republican
By Ron Chimelis | rchimelis@repub.com
on May 05, 2014
A friend tells me that what this country needs are “30,000 nuns with rulers.”
He believed society is weakened when an accepted moral compass, which may not be specific and need not be limited to one religious viewpoint, disappears entirely. He fears that is happening in America, where views and actions based purely on morality are often derided as naive, outdated or impractical.
Rev. James Scahill might not have had the physical clout of 30,000 nuns with rulers, but to many observers both in and out of the Catholic Church, announcement of his retirement provoked feelings that one distinctly moral individual was leaving the scene.
Not everyone agreed with the methods of Rev. Scahill, who attracted national attention for his outspoken criticism of the way the Catholic Church handled sex abuse allegations among its clergy. People I highly respect told me that even such a well-intentioned public stance risked making every priest a freelancer, able to pursue his own agenda at the cost of a consistent and necessary doctrine.
It’s a fair concern. What he offered, though, was something desperateIy needed at the time – the truth.
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