COLLAGE BY ANDREW STEWART USING FOLLOWING PHOTOS: McCarrick by Andy Mettler-CC BY-SA 2.0/Steve Bannon by Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 3.0/Pope Francis Photo by Jeffrey Bruno CC BY-SA 2.0
At the outset, I cannot emphasize enough the tremendous value and insight provided for the framing of this reportage by What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About #MeToo by JoAnn Wypijewski, an important anthology of sex crime journalism offering an essential lens for analyzing our neurotic social mores about sex, crime, public hysteria, and justice. Its important chapters on the Boston clergy abuse scandal gave me the backbone to write the following report.
After nearly two decades, the Best Picture Oscar-winning Spotlight, and a purported top-to-bottom institutional reform that has defrocked hundreds of clerics while leading to the disgraced retirement of a bevy of Bishops, Cardinals, and maybe even a Pope, what more could be said about the Catholic Church’s clergy child abuse scandal? How could this grisly episode, a moment that tore away one of the most painful scabs on one of the world’s oldest theological bodies, still have any novel insights?