Sept. 25 was a night of powerful admissions in a packed lecture hall at Georgetown University. Perhaps that was not surprising, given the topic up for discussion — ‘Confronting a Moral Catastrophe: Lay Leadership, Catholic Social Teaching, and the Sexual Abuse Crisis.’

“Still, those in the audience of the latest dialogue put forward by the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life could not have been fully prepared for the alternating tones of anger and anguish that characterized the evening’s conversation.

“Panelists included a theologian, a Catholic journalist, a past member of the U.S. bishops’ National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People, and a survivor of priestly sexual abuse, whose witness was both devastating and, ultimately, rousing in a way that only the words of someone speaking real truth to power could be.

“The initiative’s associate director, attorney Kim Daniels, began her introduction by not mincing words, referencing disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s ‘awful predation’ and demanding healing for survivors of abuse, reform of the church’s clerical culture, a larger role for the laity, and a renewal of the church.”

By Julie Bourbon, National Catholic Reporter — Read more …