Just The One?

There are 450 active and retired Catholic bishops in the United States. After what has seemed like an aeon of coverage, and to the ecstatic delight of the Today programme that once reported a retired American bishop's arrest for drink driving as it main news, one of them has finally been indicted for something tangentially related to child abuse. Yes, one. And yes, now, for the first time ever.

Moreover, he has been indicted for, and has pleaded not guilty to, a charge of failing to report a priest whose computer contained sexually explicit images of very young girls. That's right, everyone who engaged or colluded in the endemic sexual abuse of teenage boys has been let off. Funny, that.

And Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-Saint Joseph, for it is he, is the only American bishop to be a member of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, the diocesan priests' association "intrinsically united" to Opus Dei (of which Prelature itself no priest has ever been accused of anything in any way related to child abuse), as well as having welcomed into his diocese the rapidly growing Benedictines of Mary, Queen of the Apostles, with their charism as contemplative nuns praying for the spiritual formation of priests, and as well as having welcomed the traditionalist Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest to celebrate the Extraordinary Form in his diocese's oldest church, Saint Patrick's Oratory.

But all the liberals who engaged or colluded in the endemic sexual abuse of teenage boys have been let off. Funny, that.