Abuse crisis is actually a hierarchy crisis

by An NCR Editorial
Apr. 30, 2010

The sex abuse crisis is not fundamentally about sex. The phrase is a convenient tag that has been applied to a deeper, ongoing problem that, at its core, has to do with power and authority and how it is used in the church.

The sex abuse crisis is actually a hierarchy crisis, it is a crisis of a culture that can no longer maintain its superiority by dint of office or by claim of some ontological difference from the rest of humankind. The overwhelming evidence shows that from parish priest to pope, those charged with protecting the community, on hearing that children were being sexually abused, acted first to protect the institutional church.

A central, sad truth runs through the story that has been unraveling for the past 25 years: When the community most needed its leaders to act as pastors they chose instead to act as princes, ignoring the problem all around them while employing every means available to spare the realm. the rest

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