VINEYARD HAVEN (MA)
CRUX
September 3, 2019
By Christopher White
In the face of last August’s Pennsylvania grand jury report chronicling seven decades of clergy abuse at the hands of over 300 priests, some church leaders chose silence. Father Edward Beck decided to write.
Beck, a Passionist priest who also serves as a religion commentator for CNN, wasn’t intending to pen a work of apologetics to defend the Church’s response to the latest wave of the crisis. Yet neither was he willing to cede that things haven’t changed since it erupted in 2002.
Instead, he wanted to capture the tensions of the many parties involved – the victims, survivors, and their families who once again felt betrayed by the latest revelations, the faithful in the pews unsure if they could or should stay put, and the priests forced to account for the sins of their brothers, some of whom have been scapegoated along the way.
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