Catholic Church

By Robert Royal, EWTN News - Claims of innocence are not going to be enough any longer, nor the protections of the old-boy networks. Take the case of Cardinal Kevin Farrell, one-time auxiliary bishop of Washington D.C., who claims, implausibly, not to have known anything irregular about McCarrick, with whom he lived for six years… Farrell will be one of the speakers at the World Meeting of Families in Dublin later this month. Whether he's to blame or not, his credibility as head of the new Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life has been damaged…

By Father Raymond J. de Souza, Editor in Chief, Convivium Magazine - Dear Ted… The Lord has given you a great blessing now, a grace that is difficult, but still a grace. This grace has come to you late in the evening of life. It is certainly undeserved, and perhaps undesired. But it is a grace to face all this in advance of the fearsome judgment you will face on the day of your death, which is coming sooner rather than later. There is little time left, and there are urgent matters to deal with….

By Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky, The Catholic Thing - In the 1979 Vietnam War movie, Apocalypse Now, the Marlon Brando character, Colonel Kurtz, has gone insane and commands his own Montagnard troops, inside neutral Cambodia. So the U. S. Army sends a soldier (actor Martin Sheen) to “terminate” him. The confrontation is iconic: Kurtz: “Are you an assassin?” Sheen: “I’m a soldier.” Kurtz: “You’re neither. You’re an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill.”

By Peter Wolfgang , The Stream - Yet, I don’t think even that fully expresses the damage that has been done by the McCarrick scandal. The larger damage to the Church, which I’ve not yet seen anyone comment on, is how the McCarrick scandal will greatly worsen the priest shortage. How much less likely will Catholic parents be to encourage their son to pursue a vocation to the priesthood if they fear he may end up a guest at Uncle Ted’s beach house?