The US bishops are panicking over the burgeoning crisis in the United States following the release of a Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report that portrays in gruesome detail how bishops built and maintained for seven decades a system designed to cover up abuse and protect predator priests. The Vatican has noticed and has caught the panic as well.
That is the short version of the story as of Friday morning.
The longer version begins with two statements that appeared late in the day on Thursday, one from the President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the other from the Press Office of the Holy See. Both statements regarded the report out of Pennsylvania, the release of which came on the back of revelations concerning the abominable behaviour of a very senior churchman, Theodore McCarrick. Neither statement was adequate, or even close to it.
