UNITED STATES
GetReligion
Jim Davis
To harp on a favorite theme of mine, you need experienced specialists to cover religion news. Today’s case in point is a positive one: the Washington Post’s in-depth piece on Catholics who want Pope Francis to address clerical sex abuse during his upcoming U.S. visit.
Rather than relying cheap shots from pressure groups, the Post’s Godbeat veteran Michelle Boorstein draws her sources from Catholic authorities or those who have had direct experience with the abuse problem – some as victims. Their viewpoints range from support to opposition, and the usually neglected points in between.
In the 1,800-word article, victims of priests confess their hopes of pressing a single point to Francis during his September visit to Philadelphia: Do more to root out sex abuse and bring justice to the abused. But the piece adopts an attitude that is not skeptical but adversarial.
The Post gives about half the story to John Salveson, an abuse survivor who has been pressing church authorities for answers off and on since the early 1980s. It reports Salveson’s initial letters to his bishop, which got non-answers; then his part in a class-action lawsuit against his diocese, which failed because of a statute of limitations; then his creation of a pressure group, “which advocates for longer criminal statutes of limitations and expanded civil windows for victims to sue.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.