UNITED STATES
Huffington Post
Patricia McGuire
As the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church gather in Rome this week for their “congregations” that precede the papal election conclave, they’re getting plenty of advice from people of all persuasions about what kind of pope the Church and the world expect at this moment in human history.
As the lay leader of one of the Church’s ministries in higher education, Trinity Washington University, I share the concern and hope for the new leader’s governance abilities, broad world view and pastoral personality.
As a lifelong Catholic woman who has witnessed the real life of the U.S. Church “on the ground” with families and friends, parishioners and Catholic school teachers, deeply devoted nuns and priests and laity collaborating across the generations to advance the pragmatic work of our faith, I have a stubborn optimism that this moment is less a “crisis” in the faith, as some commentators insist, but rather, a time of real transformation for the organization of the Catholic Church as it struggles to bring its structures, policies and processes into the modern age. …
1. Atone the Child Sex Abuse Scandal: Nothing has done more to damage the Church’s credibility with faithful mainstream Catholics “in the pews” than the child sex abuse scandal. Dismissing the ongoing concerns as figments of some lefty political agenda is naïve. The ladies in the front pews with their rosaries — the pillars of the parishes, the mothers of the altar boys for generations like my sainted mother (God rest her soul) who could not escape the lingering fear that perhaps something bad had happened to one of her sons — this is the place where the scandal has wreaked permanent damage with the Church’s credibility among the faithful. Lose the mothers, lose the teachers.
Mere atonement is not enough; paying out settlements is hardly adequate. The pope and bishops must agree to a significant, permanent symbol of penance for these most grievous sins — not only the horror of the abuse, but the malignant corruption of the cover-ups — along with pervasive change in Church policies and practices universally to ensure that such horrors never happen again. The latter cannot be up to individual bishops; the pope has the power to order canonical change globally, and he should do so immediately.
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