NEW JERSEY
Star-Ledger
By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
on January 17, 2014
After years of high-level obstruction and denial, there’s an air of justification in watching Vatican envoys squirm as a United Nations panel grilled them on the church’s worldwide clergy abuse epidemic. The Holy See’s represenative finds himself in the uncomfortable crosshairs of a high-profile interrogation – a long-anticipated moment for victims of the priests’ abuse.
The U.N. investigation drives home the point – particularly for U.S. Catholics – that priest abuse isn’t a Boston issue, nor an exclusively American problem, but rather a global crisis.
The official Vatican response to U.N. questioning falls short of accepting full responsibility for decades of child sexual abuse by its clerics. But the answers include refreshing pledges, finally, that Rome “gets it.”
In concert with the U.N. probe, Pope Francis delivered powerful remarks about the scandal in his homily during Thursday’s Mass at the Vatican.
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