The Church’s Sins Are Ours

Edd Doerr (arlinc.org) thinks that Frank Bruni op ed ( Nov 4 NY Times) “The Church’s Sins Are Ours,” re sex abuse scandals" is right on target.

"It’s fashionable among some conservatives to rail that there’s insufficient respect for religion in America and that religious people are marginalized, even vilified.

That’s bunk. In more places and instances than not, they get special accommodation and the benefit of the doubt. Because they talk of God, they’re assumed to be good. There’s a reluctance to besmirch them, an unwillingness to cross them.

The new movie “Spotlight,” based on real events, illuminates this brilliantly.....

“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one,” says a character in “Spotlight.” Indeed it does: a village too cowed, and a village too credulous."

There were 414 comments on this OpEd including:

"American history is replete with examples of religious institutions and ministers betraying their spiritual mission through the pursuit of political influence. Catholic authorities who valued the church's power and influence over the welfare of the faithful violated, in the most egregious manner, the commission they believed they had received from Christ. The Protestant evangelist, Billy Graham, while innocent of any criminal behavior, also betrayed his spiritual calling when he used his pulpit to claim that God wanted Christians to vote for Richard Nixon...."

Below it the comment Edd posted in the Times on-line is a good column.


Bruni's point is reinforced by the 2014 book, Potiphar's Wife: The Vatican's Secret and Child Sexual Abuse, by church-law trained lawyer Kieran Tapsell.


Also note a report this week in the National Catholic Reporter by Jack Ruhl titled "NCR Research: Costs of sex abuse to US church underestimated."


Ruhl's research shows that the sex abuse scandal has cost the Catholic Church in the US $4 Billion in the past 65 years. Ruhl adds that "separate research recently published calculates that other scandal-related consequences such as lost membership and diverted giving has cost the church more than $2.3 Billion annually for the past 30 years." That adds up to a total of $69 Billion! No wonder church officials have been seeking public funds through vouchers and tax credits for their shrinking system of private schools.

Vatican, a bastion of extravagance?

Edd Doerr (arinc.org) posted a comment to the Nov 4 Washington Post article, 

“Pair of books paint Vatican as a bastion of extravagance,” by Anthony Faiola and Stefano Pitrelli.

We do not need to wait for these two Italian books to be published in English. We have lawyer Gerald Posner's 2015 book, God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican (Simon and Schuster). 

Further, we have a report in this week's National Catholic Reporter by Jack Ruhl, "NCR research: Costs of sex abuse crisis to US church underestimated." 

Ruhl writes that "The US Catholic Church has incurred nearly $4 Billion in costs related to the priest sex abuse crisis during the past 65 years, according to an extensive NCR investigation of media reports , databases and church documents." 

Ruhl adds: "In addition, separate research recently published calculates that other scandal-related consequences such as lost membership and diverted giving has cost the church more than $2.3 Billion annually for the past 30 years." 

That's a total of $69 Billion! No wonder church officials have been pushing for tax aid for their shrinking private school system through vouchers and tax credits, a scheme of course overwhelmingly opposed by American voters.