CONNECTICUT
Middletown Press
Pope Francis is leading the Roman Catholic Church down a new path of contrition over the role it played in protecting priests who sexually abused children. We’re wondering when the message will be heard by his leaders in Connecticut.
“Before God and his people, I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you, and I humbly ask forgiveness,” the pope said in a meeting with victims earlier this year. He also asked forgiveness “for the sins of omission on the part of church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse made by family members as well as by abuse victims themselves.”
At the same time, Pope Francis has criticized materialism in the church and its emphasis on shoring up its own finances over serving the poor.
“Oh, how I would like a poor church, and for the poor,” he said, and, “If money and material things become the center of our lives, they seize us and make us slaves.”
In Connecticut, the Roman Catholic Church apparently remains enslaved.
The spiritual leader of the Archdiocese of Hartford, Archbishop Leonard Blair, is attempting to overturn a 12-year-old state law that lengthened the statute of limitations on filing civil lawsuits over sexual abuse. The church wants to avoid a jury’s order to pay $1 million to a victim of priest sex abuse and, in the process, protect itself from potential claims by others who were assaulted by employees it was protecting.
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