(ROME — 25 February 2019) Even before the thing began — whatever the thing was that happened over four days last week and into Sunday here in Rome — the pieces didn’t quite fit.
At the Monday presser presenting the three days of working sessions and two liturgies that were to serve as capstones to the event, several churchmen spoke about the need for concreteness in addressing the crisis and transparency in dealing with the public.
When journalists from two different outlets asked about the ongoing case of Mgr Joseph Punderson (a priest of the Diocese of Trenton, who spent a quarter century as an official at the Apostolic Signatura — the Church’s “Supreme Court”), recently listed by his home diocese as “removed from ministry” because of a credible allegation of sexual abuse against him, the response was that the specific question was beyond the purview of the briefing. Joshua McElwee reported the exchanges for the National Catholic Reporter:
