Of Muslim Cowherds, Catholic Martyrs, and Institutional Decline, by Robert Royal

It’s common today to lament the widespread loss of faith in institutions: governments, schools, colleges and universities, courts, medical authorities, religions, and (not least) the Catholic Church. There are many reasons, good and bad, for this loss of faith. In most cases, it’s simply the reaction to our institutions failing to do what they’re meant to do. Sometimes there are such bizarre breakdowns that you’re tempted to give up on such bodies yourself.

The Catholic Church lost a great deal of confidence, of course, over the sexual abuse crisis. However much the Church has been unfairly criticized when other institutions – like public schools – have comparable and even worse records, with little damage to their reputations, the humiliation was a wake-up call. Or would have been, if the whole Church had adopted effective remedies for this all-too-real problem. Yet inexplicably, we have celebrity priests like Marko Rupnik S.J. accused of staggering abuses and blasphemies, yet still active in ministry. As are others. ….