UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

President Obama surprised three mothers with calls to wish them a Happy Mother’s Day. “I know how tough it is to raise kids and do right by them, and if it hadn’t been for my mother, I certainly wouldn’t be here,” Obama said. A nice gesture, but not enough. As a husband and father, Obama knows much more than childless priests about the uniqueness and vulnerability of children and the role of parents in protecting them. He also knows that USA moms, as well as moms from Chile, Ireland, the UK, the Philippines, Australia, Germany and almost everywhere else, want leaders like him, Germany’s Angela Merkel, the UK’s David Cameron, et al., to curtail child abuse in religious organizations whose lay members are in practice unable to bring their nefarious leaders to account.

In tribute to his own remarkable mother and to his…