More on Finn Story: Huffington Post Top Headline Reads, "Dereliction of Duty"

Right now, 6:41 P.M. CST, the Finn story is the headline news story at Huffington Post--headline reading, "Dereliction of Duty: Bishop Charged in Shameful Case . . . Highest Ranking U.S. Catholic Official Ever Indicted for Failing to Protect Children."

This is so deeply embarrassing for Catholics.  Or perhaps I should say, it ought to be deeply embarrassing for Catholics.  This is how we've come to be known in the American public sphere.  It's what the reform of the reform has come to--a rejection of Vatican II that Finn has welcomed and promoted with open arms, with his Latin Masses, use of the cappa magna, one-issue politics making abortion a test case for Catholic voters, overt political partisanship on behalf of the Republican party.

And, above all, it's what the reform of the reform has come to mean in the area of clericalism: Father knows best and Father is always right.  Even when Father is absolutely, criminally wrong.

We are a deeply wounded church now, and the wounds are self-inflicted, no matter how much our belligerent institutional apologists would like to pretend otherwise, to claim that all this has come about due to anti-Catholicism and the desire of the secular media to undermine Catholic moral authority.  It is more and more apparent to people of good will everywhere that the problems the Catholic church now faces stem right from the top level of its leadership, where the return to clericalism has been absolute, where corruption is deeply entrenched, and where the cover-up has been orchestrated from the controlling center of the church.

For the context in which I last used the graphic at the head of this posting, see this previous posting about Bishop Finn.