Waiting for the “Spring”, by Stephen P. White

By Stephen P. White, The Catholic Thing, Sept. 18, 2020

Stephen P. White is executive director of The Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America and a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

When Pope John Paul II announced a Great Jubilee to mark the dawn of the third Christian millennium, he spoke boldly of a “new springtime of Christian life.” The Jubilee promised to be a crowning moment in a pontificate filled with great achievements. The pope had begun his pontificate by exhorting the Church to “Be not afraid!” He finished the Great Jubilee on a similar theme, echoing the Lord’s command to his disciples: Duc in altum! Put out into the deep! The Great Jubilee came to a close on the Feast of the Epiphany, 2001.

Those were heady days.

On January 6, 2002 – exactly one year after the Great Jubilee concluded – the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team ran a story about a serial child molester who also happened to be a Catholic priest: Fr. John Geoghan. The archdiocese, it turned out, knew of his crimes. Nevertheless, Geoghan was shuffled from parish to parish, leaving a trail of broken lives in his wake. The Long Lent, to use Fr. Richard John Neuhaus’s phrase, had begun. In a way, it is still going on. …