What could be more fun than eating sushi on the water in Fell’s Point on a summer evening? We were about to find out.

What could be more fun than eating sushi on the water in Fell’s Point on a summer evening? We were about to find out.

Parish priests and deacons throughout the Archdiocese of Baltimore used their Aug. 18-19 homilies, along with messages on social media, bulletins and letters, to address their flocks in response to the recent findings of the Pennsylvania grand jury report concerning clergy child sexual abuse and the way bishops handled abusers.

“No effort must be spared” to prevent future cases of clerical sexual abuse and “to prevent the possibility of their being covered up,” Pope Francis said in a letter addressed “to the people of God.”

The only way forward in this difficult hour is to center our lives on Christ and through Christ to give the Spirit access to our hearts. In that way, instead of clergy and laity growing apart from one another, we will strive in God’s grace to repair broken relationships, to heal those who have been wounded and disillusioned, and to renew the internal workings of the Church.

My husband and sons made it home as the rain was starting, but there were no fish for dinner.

Erie Bishop Lawrence T. Persico said the only way to regain the trust of the laity after decades-long claims of sexual abuse by priests and others at six Pennsylvania dioceses is by deeds and one of those deeds may mean getting rid of bishops who hid abusers.

The festival, which draws those from the greater metropolitan area to the St. Leo community, offers an opportunity to normalize Catholicism in everyday life, as well as promote religious vocations.

The abuses described in the report are criminal and morally reprehensible. Those acts were betrayals of trust that robbed survivors of their dignity and their faith.

I do know this … we have no power in other people’s spaces. But God does.

This is not a mere public relations crisis. It represents a tsunami of moral failures – grave acts of commission and omission – that have justifiably bewildered and angered God’s people and undercut the Church’s evangelizing mission.

The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Aug. 16 announced three key goals and a comprehensive plan to address the “moral catastrophe” of the new abuse scandal hitting the U.S. church.

Over the past few weeks, I have been going through some boxes of photos and mementoes. The idea is that I will organize them and maybe even discard some things I don’t need.
