MONTANA
Billings Gazette
Christians last week marked the beginning of Lent, a time for spiritual reflection and contemplating a broken world in need of salvation.
As Lent begins, the two Montana Roman Catholic dioceses proceed at different points with lawsuits which allege sexual abuse and cover-up by authorities years ago. It’s purely coincidental that news of these lawsuits and a bankruptcy by the Diocese of Helena come on the heels of Lent.
And yet coincidence is indeed beautiful in its timing.
Not enough can be written and not enough damning words can be said about the alleged abuse that took place in the Roman Catholic Church, where priests and institutions may have permitted sexual predators license to prey upon the most vulnerable in the church, the children. Of all the things Jesus made clear in the New Testament, few words were more pointed or unequivocal than those he spoke against those who would harm children.
Yet, this is not an editorial adding our condemnation for a stiff-necked church unwilling to admit its role in unspeakable crimes. It wasn’t just institutional indifference, it went beyond that.
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