Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon on what's despicable about Cardinal Dolan's letter to the Vatican asking permission for the "improved protection" of funds of the Milwaukee archdiocese as survivors of childhood sexual abuse by priests made claims against the archdiocese:What's despicable is . . . that men like Dolan still get to a pulpit from which to pronounce, without any hint of irony, that issues like marriage equality constitute a "tragic" offense to humanity – "especially our children." It’s that these creeps are still permitted to have any opinion whatsoever about what’s in the interests of "our children."
Mary Elizabeth Williams is a practicing Catholic with a strong Catholic conscience. What a pity--a downright tragedy--that a church which describes itself as the people of God makes so little room in its public discourse for such statements of strong conscience by its lay members.
What a pity that the voice the leaders of the church want to equate with "the" voice of the church is the voice of Cardinal Dolan and his brother bishops. We Catholics would be far better served in the American public square if more lay voices of sound conscience had equal footing to represent the church in the public square.
