Diocese of New Orleans Offers to Pay for Past Sins


The Diocese on New Orleans is about to follow countless other Dioceses by filing for bankruptcy. It's hard to imagine a Catholic Diocese has $200 million to pass out and will stay in business. Aside from the unthinkable crimes clergy committed across the world, the amount of money taken from the faithful and now spent paying for crimes is another part of the saga. 

Looking at the Catholic Church today, it is hard to understand how the volume of sex abuse, especially to children, could have gone on for so long without something somewhere stopping it. In parishes from one coast to the other were thousands of cases happening at the same time. Then, Bishops, who could have stopped it, approved of it by moving abusers from one parish to another. One would think parents would have organized to stop it. If not parents, Bishops would have organized and realized the problem is one for law enforcement. 

Of course, none of this was stopped because of the narrative of that time. The narrative was that "the church" is so important it must not be exposed to bad publicity. The carefully cultivated image of the lovable and kind priest must be maintained even if there were some very evil priests. If you were attracted to children, it was a perfect place for you.

Ownership of property by diocese like New Orleans is slipping away. Numbers are falling. More priests are needed to replace the large number of retirees. Better policies are in place and some young men are signing up. The big picture, however, is a denomination that cannot adjust to the new reality.



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