FALL RIVER (MA)
National Catholic Register
August 7, 2018
By Father Roger J. Landry
COMMENTARY: Now is the time to cooperate — and cooperate fully — with God’s cleansing fire for his Church.
The sad revelations about the sins of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, involving the sexual abuse of both male minors and seminarians, have brought the Church in the U.S. and beyond to a second recent phase in the necessary purification of the clergy of the Church. The first phase happened in 2002, after the disclosure that more than 4,000 (out of 110,000) priests had been accused in the U.S. of sexual abuse of minors in the previous half-century.
The U.S. bishops convened in Dallas and adopted what has overall been a heralded systemic response to root out those who have abused minors from the priesthood, protect children and care for survivors.
But there were several major problems with Dallas, however.
First, the phrase “credible accusations” was exceedingly vague and could encompass even accusations that were immediately demonstrably false.
Second, bishops exempted themselves from the policy.
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