The U.S. Church’s 9/11

Richard A. Sokerka

Our nation and, more specifically, those of us who live in the metropolitan New York area, marked the 17th anniversary of the 9/11 Islamist terrorist attacks on the U.S. with prayers and sorrow at the massive loss of life that day in 2001 with our solemn vow “never to forget.”

On that day of remembrance, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the personal secretary to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, said the Catholic Church in the U.S. is now undergoing her own 9/11 — an “abomination of desolation” — but one that the Church will survive because her foundation is the truth of the Risen Lord that can never be weakened or destroyed.

He spoke of a “whirlwind of news” including the publication of the grand jury report on clergy sexual abuse in Pennsyl­vania, accusations against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, and the growing number of states where attorney generals have formed task forces to investigate clergy sexual abuse.

Archbishop Gänswein said the Church now must “cast a horrified glance at her own 9/11” even if “unfortunately this catastrophe did not occur on a single day but over many days and years, and affecting countless victims.” He stressed that he had no intention of comparing the victims of clergy abuse to all the lives lost in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

“And yet,” he said, the latest news coming from the United States “tells us of how many souls have been irreparably and mortally wounded by priests,” something that is “news even more terrible than if all the churches in Pennsylvania, along with the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, were to suddenly collapse.”

Archbishop Gänswein’s remarks about the crisis gripping the U.S. Church points to the hard work ahead for the Church in this heartbreaking chapter that has shaken the faith of so many in the leadership of the Church. Beyond the obvious prioritizing of compassion and justice for all victims, the Church needs to increase transparency and restore trust from Rome on down.

We’re hopeful that Pope Francis’ meeting next February with all the presidents of the Catholic bishops’ conferences of the world to discuss the issue of sexual abuse of minors will be the start of ending this horrid chapter in the Church’s life.

Just as on that fateful day on Sept. 11, 2001, when good overcame evil through the actions of Americans who risked their lives to help those targeted in the terrorists’ attacks, so to the Church’s determination to end sexual abuse within its ranks once and forever will evoke the healing through which good will overcome evil.