Excellent editorial from the Chicago Tribune, calling on Cardinal George to take the lead in Dallas:Initial anger over so-called pedophile priests now is shifting to the bishops. Catholics understand that most current disclosures of abuse concern incidents that occurred decades ago; there is no question that future abuse will be dealt with severely. Nor do most Catholics harbor grudges toward their faith, their parish, or the overwhelming majority of American priests who follow their vows and typically work themselves far too hard in service to others.
But opinions on the bishops have been punishing. In mid-May, a CBS News poll found that 79 percent of Catholics thought the church was doing a poor job of dealing with the scandal--up sharply from 62 percent in late April. Also in May, a Gallup poll for USA Today and CNN asked a sampling of Catholics whether the pope should "remove any diocese leader who transferred a priest rather than reporting to police that the priest had abused young people." Eighty-six percent said yes. And a New York Times-CBS poll found that Catholics view the handling of the scandal by leaders of the U.S. church as far inferior to the way parish priests have responded.
It will not be easy for the hierarchy to reverse this profound loss of confidence. A Dallas conference which dwells only on priestly sins that appear to be diminishing in frequency, rather than on the church's painfully evident crisis of failed management, could make matters worse.
The bishop best equipped to fill this vacuum of leadership is Cardinal Francis George of Chicago. He leads an archdiocese whose protocols for dealing with accusations of misconduct are, if not perfect, much better than most. Yet whatever reforms he proposes are not crystal-clear to the faithful. It has been difficult for Chicago-area Catholics to formulate the end of this sentence: "My cardinal gets the loss of confidence in the hierarchy, and he says we really have to . . . "
George has been in a listening mode, which is fine. But his unique role in the U.S. church as a new and uncompromised cardinal positions him to impress on his fellow bishops that some of them, not just errant priests, must leave their posts now if the church is to regain what it has lost. The injuries enabled by some bishops are too numerous, the admitted sins of omission too calculated, to permit the future holding of power.
It's quite possible the cardinal understands this. In an interview Friday he did not disclose his own agenda for Dallas, but did volunteer the verity that Americans have little tolerance for failures of authority. "We are at a turning point," he said. "This will not be the same church."
For many skeptical Catholics, the question will be what, exactly, that sentence means. Following their brief meeting with Pope John Paul II in Rome during April, the U.S. cardinals issued a weak-kneed and ambiguous statement that suggested no consequences for failed leaders. It doesn't help that, in intervening weeks, various Vatican officials have suggested that bishops need not turn over charges or evidence of sexual abuse by clerics to civil authorities. Which sounds suspiciously to American ears like a veiled Vatican warning that the bishops shouldn't kowtow to public pressure.
To a point, that's fair. The church is not a public trust. It is, though, the most vital private educator, health-care provider and voice for social justice in America. It wants, and historically has deserved, to be taken seriously on many issues.
Restoring that stature, and mending the broken hearts of countless Catholics, demand the kind of bold candor that endangers careers. That is much to ask of Cardinal George, who did not get where he is by rocking boats.
That is also what his church desperately needs from him. If he carries but one message to Dallas, let it be that reforms--and consequences--within the U.S. church need to begin at the top.