It’s been a while now since I wrote anything at all about the problems of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. That is not because I’ve lost interest, and still less because the problem has gone away – quite the contrary. I just reached a point, especially after the papal response to the Irish bishops, that there seemed so much to say, but also so much being written elsewhere, that the issue was in danger of becoming all-consuming, and with it, a risk of becoming contaminated with what my colleague Jayden Cameron calls “psychic poison”. I needed to take a step back, and get some of the perspective that comes with distance.
With that advantage, I now want to make a regular return to the topic, not with my own thoughts, but by drawing to your attention some of the better commentary I have seen elsewhere – with the emphasis on commentary, not the gory details. I am also no longer particularly interested in analysing the causes, (except where there is something fresh being said), as much of these have been discussed endlessly, both here, at Queering the Church, and elsewhere. I am now more interested in writing about the likely long-term impact on the church (as I began to discuss here).
(As Andrew Sullivan observes, "One imagines that this 1973 design for the Catholic Church's Archdiocesan Youth Commission would not make the cut today")
To kick this off, I wiant to draw your attention to what has become an impressive continuous series on the subject at National Catholic Reporter, some of which I will be discussing later in more detail.
