The official response to the allegations against Theodore McCarrick has been tiresomely predictable. First, the bishops expressed shock and disbelief; then they dutifully called for improved procedures to deal with offending clerics. Of course Church law, like the Church it serves, is always in need of some reform. But the crisis of clerical sexual abuse is not primarily canonical in nature, and it will not be rooted out by improved juridic procedures.
These evils, which have been abetted by the antinomianism which has penetrated even the highest levels of the Church, demand more than just paying closer attention to legal processes. Grave and public penances must be personally performed by bishops, in proportion to their own responsibility for the crisis.
