MIAMI (FL)
WLRN
August 23, 2018
By Tim Padgett
COMMENTARY
As a Roman Catholic, I’m supposed to be encouraged by the anguished letter Pope Francis issued this week. The one in which he condemns the monstrous and never-ending “atrocities” of sexual abuse of children by priests – and their equally monstrous and never-ending cover-up by bishops.
But I’m not hopeful.
That’s because aside from being a Catholic I’m also a Latin Americanist – and I know how badly Francis, the first Latin American pope, failed Latin America in this crisis. That’s why Latin Americans, particularly South Americans, seem to understand that this criminal tragedy won’t be solved by a papal crackdown on the priesthood. It can only really be addressed by a papal crack-up of that priesthood.
That means turning the Catholic clergy from a celibate, all-male cabal – one that considers its own protection more important than our childrens’ – into a more empathetic society of service by allowing priests to marry and women to be priests.
Many in Latin America have given up on that ever happening. So they’re voting with their feet, especially in the wake of priest abuse scandals like the one Chile is suffering through – and which Francis failed to confront until recently, after he and the Catholic Church had already hemorrhaged their moral credibility in that country.
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