UNITED STATES
The New York Times

October 16, 2018

By Daniel E. Burns

The clergymen of the U.S. can show our fellow Americans that the Roman Catholic Church is much more than the Roman Curia.

The recent revelations of corruption, abuse and neglect within the Catholic Church hierarchy have been a trial for every American Catholic. Abuse victims and their families have suffered unspeakably. Next to them, the greatest sufferers have surely been our innocent American clergymen, who bear the brunt of the shame, contempt, and anger directed at the church every day.

A great majority of our clergymen share our outrage at clerical abuse. Priests all suffer for the sins of their brothers. Married deacons see their own children and grandchildren in the faces of the victims.

To Catholics, our American clergy is an essential link in a living chain of witnesses stretching back to the Apostles. Nearly…