too little, too late<\/a>. Inserting references to due process, to waivers to be “certainly” granted by the Pope, of “commitments” to undictated action by bishops, all depends on the bishops being trusted by the laity to handle these matters diligently and quickly.<\/p>\nThe problem is, too many of the laity don’t trust the bishops, because they know the Church has been dragged, kicking and glowering, into taking the matter seriously — and that the Vatican has shown more interest in making sure that the laity knows who’s in charge here. Hence getting lay review boards out of the disciplinary picture, and refusing to impose any punishment on bishops who don’t follow the policies.<\/p>\n
The policy to be adopted is better than nothing, and probably more than many of the Vatican powers want. What the Church may really need is probably too draconic for anyone’s taste. <\/p>\n
But that’s what happens when you squander trust — it comes back to bite everyone on the butt. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The number one problem with the revised abuse-handling policy being voted up on by US Catholic bishops is that it should have been the policy all along, at a minimum….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2564,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/06\/04\/maybe_theyve_fi.html","url_meta":{"origin":3474,"position":0},"title":"Maybe they’ve finally figured it out","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 4-Jun-02 10:41am","format":false,"excerpt":"The proposed plan by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops looks like it might actually reasonably address the problem of abusive priests and the hierarchy that enables them. The plans...","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31435,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/20\/church-of-england-votes-down-women-bishops-for-now.html","url_meta":{"origin":3474,"position":1},"title":"Church of England votes down women bishops (for now)","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 20-Nov-12 12:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A sad story, IMO ... especially since the failure to make it happened came from the laity, not the clergy or bishops themselves. An interesting glimpse into the polity of the CoE, in terms of what it takes to vote such things in, as well as some of the potential\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2493,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/06\/13\/as_the_bishops.html","url_meta":{"origin":3474,"position":2},"title":"As the bishops deliberate …","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 13-Jun-02 4:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Here are some heartfelt, powerful words from Andrew Sullivan that I think ring true for a lot of Catholic laity, and priests as well. Does this mean that the church...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11158,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/03\/28\/the_other_ecclesiastical.html","url_meta":{"origin":3474,"position":3},"title":"The other ecclesiastical shoe drops","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 28-Mar-07 6:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Bp. Rob O'Neill has finally outlined the charges against outlined the charges against Rev. Don ArmstrongRev. Don Armstrong -- whose parish declared it was quitting the Episcopal Church, joining...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/episc-shield.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1808,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/04\/26\/much_ado_result.html","url_meta":{"origin":3474,"position":4},"title":"Much Ado Resulting in Nearly Nothing","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 26-Apr-02 10:29am","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, the dust has more or less settled from the big Papal conference of American cardinals and bishops. The result? Not a heck of a lot. Despite a couple of...","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2479,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/06\/17\/the_bishops_dec.html","url_meta":{"origin":3474,"position":5},"title":"The Bishops decide","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 17-Jun-02 2:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The USCCB (United States Council of Catholic Bishops) new policies regarding the abuse scandal came on Friday, just when I was dealing with other stuff in my schedule (and lack...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}