WASHINGTON (DC)
The Weekly Standard
September 12, 2018
By Sophia Buono
“The question is, ‘Who can you trust?’”
One morning, Robert Altier entered a store in Minnesota, expecting a normal round of shopping. But what he encountered was anything but normal.
“There was a small child who was there with his mom,” says Altier. “And I [saw] this absolutely horrified look on the woman’s face, and she pulled him back.”
What provoked the reaction? Altier, a Catholic priest, was simply wearing his clerical attire—the black button-down and pants, complete with the white collar. But that outfit was enough to frighten a small child.
After a slew of disturbing reports regarding sexual abuse allegations against priests and cover-ups from bishops, the incident (which happened to Fr. Altier “years ago,” in the midst of Minnesota’s own abuse scandals) demonstrates one of the repercussions that abuse scandals have had on the life and work of Catholic priests in America today.
The infamous Pennsylvania grand jury report and indictments against ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick have revealed church leaders’ failures to reprimand and remove perpetrators. This allowed the number of abuses to rise to painfully high levels. The Pennsylvania report alone identified 301 priests from six Pennsylvania dioceses who abused at least 1,000 children and adolescents between the 1940s and the 2010s.
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