Thursday, July 12, 2007
IS THE CRISIS OVER ?
According to an AP report:
The U.S. Catholic Church is quietly entering a new season.
Settlement negotiations are under way in Los Angeles for the largest remaining batch of clergy sex abuse lawsuits. Polls have shown greater trust in the nation's bishops than a few years ago. There's even been a fundraising recovery in the city at the epicenter of the worst scandal to ever strike American Catholicism - Boston.
Five years after the national abuse scandal began there, triggering a long season of reflection, the church is moving out of crisis mode.
However in the same article:
Paul Lakeland, a Catholic studies professor at Fairfield University, a Jesuit institution in Connecticut, said the Los Angeles situation alone shows the U.S. church remains in crisis. He and others attribute the abuse scandal's fading public profile to fatigue among Catholics about the issue, not in belief that the problem has been solved.
"If tomorrow we could declare the sex abuse scandal over, that would not mean that the church was in better shape because the problems of the church are much more deep-seated structural problems with episcopal leadership on a whole host of issues," Lakeland said.
Are we at a turning point? Is the crisis old news? What do you think?
