MASSACHUSETTS
Daily Hampshire Gazette
Thursday, February 11, 2016
As an inspiring Pope lifts Catholic hopes worldwide with his call for inclusion and justice, the leader of the Springfield Diocese is using a Lenten tradition to reach out to disaffected Catholics. He is calling for the spirit of renewal, and forgiveness, to permeate the church in western Massachusetts.
Whether he succeeds depends on follow-through.
In a remarkable pastoral letter distributed this week, Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski apologizes for a lot of things. Most notably, he says that pain “still echoes” over clergy sexual abuse, an injury that may feel fresh again because of “Spotlight,” the movie about the Boston Globe’s discovery that the church systematically concealed the truth about molestation and shuffled abusive priests to unsuspecting parishes.
Bishop Rozanski’s institutional mea culpa, expressed in a 2,300-word letter called “The Wideness of God’s Mercy,” seems heartfelt. He asks forgiveness from victims of clergy abuse, their families and friends “and all those scandalized by the Church’s failure to protect our young people and for any lack of diligence in responding.” While the bishop goes on to list several reasons people have distanced themselves from the church, the top complaint, no doubt, is clergy abuse. “There are many people hurting in our Catholic community from the pain caused by our past failures as a diocese, as well as the grievous actions of some who ministered in our church,” the bishop says in the letter, made public Wednesday.
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.