UNITED STATES
Crisis Magazine
by Regis Martin
It must be because February is so fleeting that one naturally assumes the news cycle will follow suit. Less calendar time translates into fewer stories, right? Wrong. Recent events have blown that thesis completely out of the water. Begin with the announcement of a papal resignation—could anything be more newsworthy? It will take effect by the end of this month, too, leaving the See of Peter officially vacant until a conclave can elect a new pope.
So what else has happened this month? How about the unprecedented public rebuke of retired Cardinal Roger Mahony by his successor, Archbishop Jose Gomez, in the largest Archdiocese in America, the City of Angels no less?
What an extraordinary moment this has been in the life of the Church. And, without doubt, the most stunning humiliation possible for a once popular prelate, who had championed all the hot-button issues so dear to the liberal heart, from farmworkers to immigrants to inmates on Death Row. What had he done to deserve this? He had, in a word, failed to protect children and young boys from sexual abuse by predatory priests. “Nothing in my own background or education,“ he confessed on his blog, equipped him to cope with such a problem. How competent does a Cardinal need to be to recognize and report criminal sex abuse among members of his own clergy? If it requires a masters degree in social work, then what possible use did he make of the one he had earned? On the other hand, one would have thought a class or two in Morals and Canon Law quite enough background for someone charged with the spiritual welfare of four million plus souls. That and a little courage with which to punish priests who set about perverting the young and the innocent.
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