LEXINGTON (KY)
Lexington Herald Leader
November 15, 2017
By Jane Chiles
I have read, watched and listened to the commentary concerning the allegations that have been swirling around Roy Moore, candidate for the U.S. Senate seat that was vacated when Sen. Jeff Sessions joined the Trump Cabinet as attorney general. I can no longer remain silent. I had been hopeful that we had evolved beyond the “destroy the victim” culture, but it is clear that we have not.
In 2002, a lengthy series of investigative articles were published in the Boston Globe, exposing the U.S. Catholic Church’s long history of sexual abuse of minors by priests. Ultimately, after months of stories validating this evil, the church was forced to confront its demons.
As a lifelong Roman Catholic who had spent the most recent 12 years of my life as the executive director of the Catholic Conference, handling public policy for the Catholic bishops in Kentucky, and raising three sons in the church, I am unable to fully describe how crushingly painful, shocking, disappointing and anger-generating this was for me.
But I was one of the lucky ones. I was able to arrive at a horrific train wreck and roll up my sleeves and do something about this. I was appointed to the first National Review Board in July of 2002, a board created by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
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