How much worse are things going to get in Rome? Rod Dreher discusses.
I can tell you something from my own reporting years ago. Benedict was in as much denial as anybody else in Rome, until 2002, when his fax machine at his Vatican office began disgorging round the clock reports from American dioceses detailing the horrors of the scandal from American bishops’ files. A source of mine in the Vatican likened that fax machine to a transatlantic sewer line, disgorging foulness round the clock. It woke Cardinal Ratzinger up — but John Paul wouldn’t let him move against men like the odious Marcial Maciel. It’s not an accident that the CDF didn’t begin to move against Maciel until John Paul was on his deathbed. Things really did change under Benedict, and it’s simply wrong to claim that it’s business as usual in Rome. But there’s the other shoe now dropping.
John Allen’s feature is here.