UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary
Posted by Joelle Casteix on April 2, 2012
Why, oh why, does the Catholic Church continue to bestow honors and awards on tragically flawed wrong-doers?
Trial watchers in Philadelphia have been treated to a firsthand view of vile and disgusting human behavior. What makes it worse is that the evildoers are priests and the victims are children. The lede from the Philadephia Inquirer’s Sunday story on the trial is enough to make even the hard-hearted ill:
Stalking. Groping. Gay bondage porn.
A sexually graphic love letter to a grade-school boy.
That they emerged in testimony about priests – and at times, from priests – only amplified the uneasiness.
One would think that the big boss who allowed this activity to continue and flourish would be castigated and forced to live a life of penance and contrition. Not so much.
Disgraced Philly Cardinal Justin Rigali—who retired last year after the Philadelphia Grand Jury exposed the fact that he was keeping more than two dozen accused priests in ministry in 2011—has been honored by the Pope as a special envoy and this week will be a special Mass celebrant at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.
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