Ross is hopeful:
Last Wednesday, the Vatican formally accepted the resignation of Bishop James Moriarty, the third Irish prelate to step down over his role in sex abuse cover-ups. The next day, a German bishop, Walter Mixa of Augsburg, offered his resignation over allegations that he’d been involved in physical abuse at an orphanage in the 1970s and ’80s. Then on Friday it was Belgium’s turn: The bishop of Brugges resigned after publicly admitting to having sexually abused a minor two decades ago. And over the weekend, Sweden’s lone Catholic bishop announced his willingness to resign over a woman’s claim that he’d failed to respond to an allegation of sex abuse against one of his diocese’s priests.
You could call this an awful week for the church, but I’d call it a relatively good one. The crimes and cover-ups aren’t new; what’s new are the resignations, and the sense that bishops as well as priests are facing accountability for things done and left undone.