UNITED STATES
Arkansas Times
by Gene Lyons
Somewhere in the midst of an avalanche of sickening revelations about child sex abuse by Catholic clergy it occurred to me that if the Vatican sought an appropriate penance for its sins, it would go mute on issues of sexual morality for about 100 years.
Needless to say, that’s not about to happen.
Instead, habemus papam. (We have a pope.) Catholics have witnessed the unprecedented resignation of Pope Benedict, widely seen to have failed utterly to cope with the church’s grave crisis — perhaps even in his own estimation — and the remarkable accession of Pope Francis.
During the months since his selection, the 76-year-old Argentine has stirred an outsize response throughout the world — galvanizing not only the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, but members of other faiths and even the irreligious with a shrewd blend of public theater and spiritual humility.
Writing in the New Yorker, James Carroll reports that “even ‘kick the Pope’ Orangemen in Northern Ireland love Pope Francis. The press is obsessed with him. Time recently named him Person of the Year.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.