A miter full of denial
Yet another public Catholic recites his woes, this time E.J. Dionne, who spends an entire column discussing the plight of the post-Keating Catholic lay review board.
But beyond the internal politics is a problem of spiritual leadership. "We're in month 18 of the most serious crisis in the history of the American Catholic Church," says Scott Appleby, a Notre Dame professor of religious history who addressed the bishops last year. "And we have yet to hear from leading figures in the church about how we should make moral, ethical, theological and spiritual sense of what happened."Why is it that after all we've been through, the bishops are waiting until next spring for a bunch of lay people (who they constantly insist are irrelevant) to tell them what to do? Is there no one among the ecclesiastics willing to stand up and - GASP! - preach the Gospel?
Lay Catholic leader Peggy Steinfels argues that much of the responsibility for doing this now falls on the lay board: "They have to write a final report that's not just numbers and statistics but also explains to people why this happened -- and tells the truth." The truth may not protect bishops from lawsuits, but, as the New Testament says, it could make them free.
Disillusionment doesn't even begin to describe my attitude toward the church these days.
