Thirteen years ago, as a national scandal raged over the rape and molestation of school children by hundreds of Catholic priests, a panel of leading laity appointed by the national hierarchy to look into church responsibility candidly warned “there must be consequences” for the bishops who led years of cover-up. The bishops’ marked failure to follow through since by investigating fellow superiors was brought home this month in a scathing grand jury report in Pennsylvania. It found at least 50 priests and other church employees sexually molested hundreds of children in central Pennsylvania parishes for over four decades while church officials and some civil authorities knew but worked to conceal the crimes.

“The report used the term “soul murder” to describe a conspiracy of silence that allowed the statute of limitations to run out and perpetrators to die while victims waited for justice.”

By Francis X. Cline, The New Times — Click here to read the rest of this commentary.