The late Father Richard Neuhaus spoke of the sex-abuse scandal that broke out almost 10 years ago in the American Church as “The Long Lent.” I think he would have been astonished to know not only that it has not completely ended here (although we may finally be in the endgame), but that this sickening plague went viral into Ireland and continental Europe, bringing down not only abusing priests and religious but members of the hierarchy implicated in cover-ups that destroyed families and crippled dioceses. In the U.S., recent sexual scandals have also brought down several well-known media priests familiar to the readers of the Register through radio, television or personal appearances. And scandal has seriously hampered the operations of a well-known modern religious congregation whose late founder sadly was found to be a fraud and accused of several grave sexual crimes.
This is the background against which we need to look at the interplay of two very important virtues especially relevant for the Catholic laity today: justice and mercy.
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