HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle
August 18, 2018
By Ramesh Ponnuru
“I don’t think this is some massive, massive crisis,” said Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Catholic archbishop of Washington, D.C., in a statement that could not possibly be more wrong. Speaking three weeks after revelations about his predecessor’s sexual predation against boys and young priests, Wuerl said he was aware that a harrowing Pennsylvania grand-jury report would soon document the sexual abuse of 1,000 children by Catholic clergy and criticize Wuerl’s own treatment of some abusers.
Wuerl allowed that the news about his predecessor, Theodore McCarrick, was “a terrible disappointment.” He also said that “we need to have something that would also be a mechanism for when a bishop has not been as faithful as he needs to be, even if the charges go back 40, 50 years.” In the context of discussing a predecessor who had done a lot to destroy a boy’s life — who had raped him for years — Wuerl spoke of a bishop who “has not been as faithful as he needs to be,” a comment that could more aptly be applied to someone who had neglected to say his morning prayers.
Let it not be said, however, that Wuerl is slow to appreciate all dangers. He had what can only be described as a P.R. website ready to go when the report was released. It provoked an immediate outcry and was taken down a few hours after launching.
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