By Philip Lawler, First Things - What did the American bishops know, and when did they know it? This is the question everyone is asking in the wake of public revelations that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had, for years, preyed on seminarians who visited his beach house… To regain the credibility they have lost in recent decades, Catholic bishops in America and in Rome must do more than apologize for the transgressions of others. They must acknowledge their own offenses—their willingness to tolerate abusive clerics, to protect them, to promote them.