My column on the unfolding disaster. An excerpt:
[Cardinal Donald] Wuerl allowed that the news about his predecessor, Theodore McCarrick, was “a terrible disappointment.” He also said that “we need to have something that would also be a mechanism for when a bishop has not been as faithful as he needs to be, even if the charges go back 40, 50 years.” Even amid that march of euphemism and evasion, one phrase should leap out. In the context of discussing a predecessor who had done a lot to destroy a boy’s life – who had raped him for years – Wuerl spoke of a bishop who “has not been as faithful as he needs to be,” a comment that could more aptly be applied to someone who had neglected to say his morning prayers.