In cases throughtout the nation, the Catholic chursh is facing scandals and being forced to pay millions of dollars in claims to families whose sons have been molested by Catholic priests.
     These are serious and damaging matters that have victimized the young and innocent and fuel old suspicions against the Catholic church and a celibate clergy.  But a related and broader scandal seemingly rests with local bishops and a national episcopal leadership that has, as yet, no set policy on how to respond to these cases. 

     In January of 1988, we pleaded again for the bishops to act and by the early 1990's victims groups were organizing - and disaffection was spreading. In November, 1992, we reported the following threat:

    A potentially crippling rift is growing between U.S. lay Catholics and their clergy, and the issues involve sex and authority in the church. . . These issues have become so tightly wrapped together that they have virtually merged into one. The result is tearing at the foundations of the church.

     By 1997, we wrote:

    Twelve years have passed since NCR revealed to the wider world that some Catholics priests were betraying their priesthood in the most heinous way, by sexually abusing children.
     One might reasonably expect that by now the scandal would have been subdued, that church leaders would have done everything necessary to rekindle the trust of the everyday Catholic and to reclaim the church and the priesthood for the pursuit of holiness.
     Instead, we have had 12 years of bishops and others, with a few notable exceptions, doing what was minimally required, too often driven by legal and financial imperatives rather than by justifiable outrage at the violation of innocence and by heartfelt pastoral care for the victims.

     Today, we are covering the issue again.

     As a service to our readers, we are providing Web links to many of the stories written by NCR about clergy sex abuse and the current crisis within the Catholic church. Each week, as additional stories become available, updates will be made to these pages.