KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter
December 3, 2020
By Heidi Schlumpf
As the U.S. bishops gathered last month for their first-ever virtual meeting, there was one thing that wasn’t all that different: Several prelates pulled out the tired trope of blaming the media for all that’s wrong with the church and the world.
During the church leaders’ brief, public discussion about the McCarrick report — concerning the former cardinal’s rise in the hierarchy despite a history of sexual assault — there was plenty of talk about sins (McCarrick’s) and fasting and prayer as reparations (the bishops’).
But Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, got right to what he saw as the crux of the matter with a defense of the person upon whom the report places most of the blame: Pope John Paul II.
“What I think is unfortunate, though, is the media reports that have come out that have tried to paint St. John Paul II as somehow culpable for all this,” Paprocki said.
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