The Archbishop of Washington’s public relations strategy backfires
Six dioceses, 300 priests and 1,000 victims. Those numbers were splashed across the front pages of every newspaper in America, from the New York Times to the Bangor Daily News. The publication of a Pennsylvania grand jury report chronicling clerical sex abuse and episcopal cover-ups in that state has plunged the American Church into the worst crisis it’s faced since the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” investigation of the early 2000s.
In fact, this may be an even greater scandal. “Spotlight” set off a domino effect that revealed widespread abuse in virtually every diocese in the country. These revelations cost them $3 billion, and at least 19 have filed for bankruptcy. Thousands became disillusioned with the Church and abandoned the faith. The “paedophile priest” became a trope in popular culture, which contributed to a precipitous fall in vocations.
