One of the first tasks of the U.S. bishops' lay-run National Review Board was to thoroughly investigate the nature of the clergy sexual abuse and cover-up scandal in the U.S. A key ally was the future Pope Benedict XVI.
We say: The continued awareness of law enforcement and journalism, as well as the vigilance of the laity, is the best guarantee we have that this scourge of sex abuse and cover-up may finally be lifted.
The fallout from the sex abuse crisis is still the top priority at the U.S. bishops' spring assembly, while a question for the future arises: How to win back millennial nones?
Distinctly Catholic: It is shocking that there was apparently no effort to build a consensus among the bishops before they got to Baltimore. It is past time for new leadership at the bishops' conference.
National Review Board chairman Francesco Cesareo offered the U.S. bishops meeting in Baltimore a series of recommendations that he said will strengthen the church's response to the ongoing clergy sexual abuse crisis
Part 2 of 2: NCR publishes a posthumous essay on clerical culture from Eugene Kennedy, one of the most prolific and insightful observers of the Catholic Church in the modern era.
Just days after the Vatican abuse summit, Leadership Roundtable released proposals for reforming the clerical culture that permitted sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults to persist.
Commentary, Part 1 of 3: Pope Francis is trying to chart a way out of the long, aching scandal by forging standards where few exist. How did the crisis reach this stage? What feasible reforms can the pope engineer?
Citing health and other personal reasons, Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Alexander Salazar, 69, said he offered his retirement to Pope Francis for "the good of the church."
