The old adage is that the Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned. While it is highly unlikely that a Roman emperor played a fiddle, the adage is a good description of how the Bishops and the last five Popes have neglected their duty of protecting children.
What is burning?
The Irish church my father showed me firsthand in the early 1980’s is simply gone.
While prominent Catholics have withdrawn their support, the Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, John Nienstedt, has refused to speak. Nienstedt is silent regarding what he knew, what documents he has in the secret archives and when he knew it about Fathers Adamson, Hoefgen, Kapoun, Keating, Kern, Krautkremer, Jeub, Shelley, Stitts, Thurner and Wehmeyer.
A trial involving dozens of survivors has been plodding through the Courts in Quebec City.
A Government inquiry in Australia has unearthed documents and taken testimony from Bishops and Chancery officials demonstrating decades of thwarting the police and not reporting child sexual abuse in boarding schools, parishes, orphanages and missions.
Archbishop Robert Carlson of St. Louis is asking a civil court to dismiss a case where the Archbishop in echoes of past experience in Saint Paul and Minneapolis allegedly personally visited and asked a family to give back a check that one of his priests issued as hush money.
Bishop Finn of Kansas City St. Joseph was convicted for failing to report a reasonable suspicion of childhood sexual abuse by one of his priests, Father Shawn Ratigan.
A general counselor of the Legionnaires of Christ has resigned and petitioned the Pope to leave the Legion saying he did not have the energy to confront the challenges. Father Deomar De Guedes LC was granted a leave of absence by Cardinal Velasio De Paolis who was appointed to head the Legion after Father Marciel Maciel LC was exposed.
If the past is prologue to the future, chances are that fire will continue to burn.