Today is my debut as a “Faith Perspectives” columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I wish this wasn’t my first column, that there was no need to write this. But I write from a place of deep faith and sadness, yet hope.
You can read my column below or see the original here: http://bit.ly/RebuildChurchGivens
I write this not as an expert but as a devoted, active Catholic layperson, a father and a grandfather, a person who loves the Church and has served in a diverse number of volunteer roles for nearly 40 years: I feel like I have been kicked in the gut and betrayed by a close friend and nobody cares enough to make the systematic kicking stop.
Pope Francis recently acknowledged the “shame and repentance” of the Catholic Church’s failure to act on decades of sexual abuse by clerics against our young people. He stated emphatically that the Church “showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them.” Like many Catholics, I appreciate his words, but they are not enough.