ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Bill McClellan bmcclellan@post-dispatch.com 314-340-81431
If I were to retire sometime in the relatively near future and write a novel about a fictional city, I think I would make the city a struggling, Midwestern city with a distinguished history and an uncertain future. There would be a strong Roman Catholic presence in the city. In some ways, the church would mirror the city — distinguished history, uncertain future.
One of the characters in the novel would be the new archbishop.
He would be considered — by people inside and outside the church — as a breath of fresh air. That’s because he was replacing a bombastic and polarizing man. The new fellow seemed anything but bombastic. He was quiet, friendly and understated.
He had come from another city, of course, and like all the leaders of the American church in the early years of the 21st century, he had to account for his time during the Troubles. What did he do in the early days of the sex scandal that would rock the church? It was almost like being a German politician in the years following the Second World War. The question hung over them all — what did you do?
Our fictional archbishop did nothing extraordinary. He did nothing dishonorable. Certainly, he was not guilty of sexual abuse himself. Nor did he move abusers from one church to another. On the other hand, he did nothing heroic. He never once contacted police to report abuse. He tried to control the damage to the church.
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