Pope Francis spent 90 minutes meeting privately with eight survivors of sexual, physical and emotional abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy or in Catholic-run schools and institutions.
For their birthdays and Gotcha Days, our boys always get to pick something special for dinner. So as we were counting down to our younger son’s Gotcha Day—the seventh anniversary of the day we met one another—I asked him how he wanted to celebrate.
It would be wonderful if we could always arrive for Mass with only joy and hope. Yet most of us, myself included, celebrate this Mass with a sense of grief and anguish. It is a grief and an anguish brought about by the sexual abuse crisis that continues to trouble deeply even the most faithful of Catholics, a crisis that lingers in spite of all that has been done in the last decades to create safe environments in the Church and to purify and strengthen seminary formation.
Our happiness, our fulfillment, lies in giving everything back to God, not just what we have but our very lives. And we give our lives back to the Lord when we worship him, when we strive to lead good and virtuous lives, embrace whatever vocation we are called to, and when we serve the poor and vulnerable.
As a bishop, I am deeply humbled by such abject failure as I stand before you tonight, and not only humbled but haunted by the enormity and evil of this crisis. As best I can, I shall strive to listen to and walk with the laity in searching for and implementing meaningful and further reforms.
For our younger son’s Gotcha Day, we took him to a hibachi grill. He was excited to go, but then when we got there, all he wanted was a plate of fried rice.
Pennsylvania survivors of clergy sex abuse spent the week after the release of the grand jury report finding their voice as bishops and priests in the state wrestled with how to address the growing scandal.
Xaverian Brother Robert Flaherty, a former teacher at Mount St. Joseph High School in Baltimore, has been removed from active ministry by his religious community following an allegation that he sexually abused a minor in the mid-1980s.
Father Doyle fields questions about why the priest washes his hands at Mass and what Christ meant by the ‘poor in spirit.’
The reality is that the cross we as Catholics have chosen and have been chosen to bear is heavy and growing heavier.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life, said the church needs God to help it build bridges, to communicate and to help it understand that “we need to speak to each other and accept each other as children of God.”
I find him to be such a tender and calm soul. He speaks gently. He celebrates Mass gently. He acts gently. I love chatting with Father Bernie – his tranquility is contagious.
