ANCHORAGE (AK)
Truth in Love blog
November, 28 2018
By Archbishop Paul Etienne
For various reasons, I have been slow to share my own thoughts with you about our USCCB meeting in Baltimore earlier this month. I needed time to sit and pray with all the events and input of the week. I am sure about two things, one; the People of God need to hear from their bishops in the wake of our meeting in Baltimore, and two, there is hope for our future.
No Vote:
Without a doubt, the ‘show-stopper’ moment came at the beginning of our meeting, when Cardinal DiNardo announced that he had only the night before received word from the Holy See (through the Congregation for Bishops) that we were not to vote on any of the proposed policies for handling sexual misconduct by bishops and dealing with poor governance of bishops with regards to handling abuse cases. Since that moment, the one question that quickly surfaced was: “Why doesn’t the Pope care about the abuse crisis in the United States?”
Let me be very clear, while this was a disturbing moment, and a troubling way to begin our meeting, Pope Francis cares very much about what we are experiencing in the United States. But, he also recognizes that this is a problem of the Universal Church, and requires measures that will apply globally. I’ll have more to say about this in a moment.
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