Joseph Sullivan read with some apprehension the language on clerical child abuse that his brother bishops passed by a 239-to-13 vote last Friday in Dallas. It looks as if "we've just hung the priests out to dry," said the Brooklyn auxiliary bishop. Despite some complaints from victims, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops document is laudably tough on priests who abuse: any molester, past or future, will be forbidden to wear a collar, celebrate a public Mass or publicly call himself a priest. But the superiors who enabled the behavior got off easy. The document's defenders point out that only the...
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