Coming Clean

"Cleanliness is next to godliness," so they say. There is a certain relief, perhaps even joy, in "coming clean," an item from the North Bronx lexicon of my childhood. The lie or deception between yourself and its recipient goes away. A wall falls. Intimacy is restored and there is a homecoming. The Roman Catholic Church ritualizes this process in its sacrament of Confession, more recently named "Reconciliation." Would that the Church would look us, its members, in the eye and come clean instead of being dragged to the bathtub by the courts and the press.

Paul Vitello's NY Times piece, Bishop Avidly Opposes Bill Extending Time to File Child-Abuse Suits addresses one prelate's approach to proposed legislation that might result in more suits against priests. The print edition subtitles the article "Questions About Church-State Boundaries."

In addition to presenting Bishop DiMarzio's public statements on the topic, the article examines the role of Assemblyman Vito Lopez, who recently wrote a competing bill that would not lift the statute of limitiations on abuse lawsuits, and the forced resignation of Father James O'Shea from his post as executive director of Churches United.

dotCommonweal is already on this scene with Paul Moses' post "The Bishop, the priest and the pol".

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