DENVER (CO)
Crux
September 3, 2018
By John L. Allen Jr.
Rome – Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago is clearly irked with a local TV station, NBC5, for allegedly editing a comment he made in a recent interview to suggest he and Pope Francis don’t regard the clerical sexual abuse crisis as a priority.
“He’s got to get on with other things,” Cupich said of Francis, “talking about the environment and protecting migrants and carrying on the work of the Church. We’re not going to go down a rabbit hole on this.”
In fact, Cupich insists, he was referring not to the abuse crisis in general but to the accusation made by a former papal ambassador in the U.S. that Francis was warned of sexual misconduct concerns about ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2013 and ignored them. Cupich has already issued a statement to that effect, and he directed that it be read out at Chicago-area Masses on Sunday.
For sure, Cupich has a point, even if consuming Mass time for a spat with a TV station might be seen by some as a slight overreaction.
However, what shouldn’t be missed in the “Cardinal v. Media” sideshow is that there’s a real truth embedded in Cupich’s original statement, however misinterpreted it may have been: There is arguably no higher priority in Catholicism right now than dealing with the abuse crisis, but that doesn’t mean other important issues have gone on holiday while the Church sorts it all out.
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