When the best defense of the refusal of top Catholic leaders to address reports of sexual abuse of children by priests immediately and resolutely is this--namely, that the Catholic church functions legally at the level of a police agency in the "Law and Order" show--something is awry.
I suspect that most any police agency anywhere in the United States would leap into action at a report that a minor was being sexually abused. Immediately. Proactively.
And the church should act differently, with its claim to be a sacramental sign of God's salvific love in the world?!
These no-see, no-hear, no-speak defenses of the behavior of our indefensible Catholic pastoral leaders at this point in history, and these misplaced attacks on the secular media as the problem when the problem is sitting in the Vatican: they're just sad.
