UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
by NCR Editorial Staff | Feb. 1, 2013
Editorial
It would be difficult to develop a script more revelatory of the confounding priorities of the Vatican than that contained in the news of recent days. Real scandal — covering up the rape of children, compromising the church’s reputation with bizarre behavior and sexual shenanigans by its priests — is met with either silence from on high or unpersuasive explanations.
Meanwhile, advocates of open discussion about church teaching on women, celibacy, contraceptives and homosexuality — advocates who have advanced questions, not scandal — are met swiftly by the long arm of the law in the form of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
What the church finds deserving of its wrath in light of what it will tolerate to preserve the clerical culture and protect bishops is increasingly inexplicable to anyone outside that culture.
The record grows more grotesque by the week:
• Cardinal Roger Mahony’s long and expensive battle to keep secret files showing how priest sex abuse cases were handled in the Los Angeles archdiocese appears to be coming to an end. It is anticipated that soon files dealing with dozens of cases will finally be released. Mahony succeeded in diverting the spotlight from the truth of the matter long enough that it will probably be impossible for the legal system to do anything about what it finds in the documents.
A hint of what might be ahead was evident in a separate release of internal files on 14 priests and they show, according to the Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press, that the cardinal and other archdiocesan officials protected priests from prosecution, hiding at least one they knew had raped an 11-year-old boy and abused as many as 17 others.
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