PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Public Record
by Joe Shaheeli
Pope Front copyThere are as many answers for this one question as one can dream up.
To us, first is the fact the very popular World Meeting of Families will bring on its own several hundred thousand of the faithful.
This city is strategically located on the eastern seaboard. Its cost of living is below those of Washington and New York, places the Pope will also be visiting, and cheaper for those attending. We have an efficient, busy airport on the main stops of all airlines. Railroad lines go into the city’s heart. SEPTA has worked hard to insure maximum passenger traffic will be delivered to Center City for papal events.
South Jersey and our adjacent bedroom counties offer backup for the well over million now anticipated for meeting of World Family of Nations with the announcement of Pope Francis’ visit the same weekend. …
But look then at the mess the Philadelphia Diocese has been in. A mess that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to settle claims of sexual abuse by gay pedophile priests. Then DA Lynne Abraham released a grand-jury report that had shown the diocesan hierarchy was to blame in the way it handled that era, often sending those priests to other parishes to continue their perversion after parishioners raised the heat and demanded them out. You could trace the responsibility up to the cardinals who led the diocese during that period.
Dismayed Catholics fell away by the thousands, a main reason why parochial attendance dropped, resulting in the merging of parishes, the closing of schools. Confusion ran rampant.
The same problems have occurred around Catholic institutions in other cities. So the Pope could get a better handle or suggest how his leadership in the States should handle what needs to be done.
In came a hard-nosed Archbishop Charles Chaput, who, when exasperated at the slow pace of charge, would tell priests and others, “I wish I were back at the Indian reservation with my people.” He stands to look good, and could earn a cardinalship depending on how this visit and the Families meeting go off. Or he might get his wish.
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