The new sex abuse crisis has brought the American Church to the centre of the world’s attention. People can’t take their eyes off the carnage left by Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, his fellow predators and their enablers.
It’s too easy even for faithful Catholics to forget that the Church is more than the sum of its parts, and certainly more than the sum of the “lavender mafia”. One can mistake the institutional Church – the fallen, sinful, sometimes downright evil men who make up the priesthood – for the mystical Church: the Bride of Christ, our Holy Mother. We need a reminder that the Church is the fount of grace and the vehicle of salvation.
