Saturday, April 14, 2018

Maybe I was wrong about Pope Francis



Maybe I was wrong about Pope Francis

MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe
By Kevin Cullen GLOBE STAFF APRIL 13, 2018
It’s hard to admit mistakes.
I’m lousy at it.
My wife is much better. Whenever we drive by St. Brigid’s in South Boston, where we were married, she just shakes her head and sighs, as if to say, “Big mistake.” ...
After I wrote what could charitably be called a pair of uncharitable columns about the pope, denouncing and dismissing him after he smeared survivors of clerical abuse in Chile who had credibly accused his protege Bishop Juan Barros of complicity in the serial abuse committed by another priest, I got some interesting feedback.
Besides the predictable finger-wagging, garment-rending rhetoric from holy rollers who dismissed and denounced me as a self-loathing, lapsed Catholic who had no business criticizing the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic church, much less its infallible leader, I got some really interesting, thoughtful responses from priests and nuns.
The nuns and priests said they understood my distress and especially the distress of those who had survived clerical sexual abuse. They said they were appalled by what the pope said. But they asked me to give the pope a chance. They believe that he is a good man who wants to move the church in the right direction.
They pointed out that the pope had dispatched the Vatican’s most dogged and reputable investigator, Archbishop Charles Scicluna, to investigate the situation in Chile. Scicluna and his colleague, the Rev. Jordan Bertomeu, interviewed dozens of people and recently handed the pope a 2,300-page dossier on their findings.

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