BUT, leaving aside the problems, I suspect it is very true that a thorough house-cleaning is the only thing that can keep things like this from happening more often.
My guess would be that there have been any number of Catholic Charities enable abortions and that CC often provides contraceptives. A bishop like DiLorenzo inherits a bureacracy. He also inherits problems. And one of the tough jobs in starting up is getting information, even getting reliable sources of information. In related news: here's an observation: In '07 I took a convert I was sponsoring to the "Rite of Election". DiLorenzo preached an wonderful sermon. It was in every respect a tour de force and it laid out with enthusiasm the wonderful call that had been issued to the catechumens and candidates and the joy which had been offered to them.
This year I sponsored a catechumen and at the Rite of Election, the bishop seemed totally bummed. It was an okay sermon, but if I were asked, months later, to summarize it, I'd say it said,"This may not be what you wanted, exactly. Despite the perfection of the Church qua Church, what we live with is massive imperfection and deep and grievous flaws. Yet this IS the Church, and HERE is where Christ will richly enter your life, and you His."
I think that what I was seeing was Bp. DiLorenzo realizing what this article says. He may have, maybe naively, thought that the staff he inherited was loyal to the Church and obedient.
For a minute, stipulate that he tried to do the right thing, and trusted his subordinates. Think of the sense of betrayal he would then feel. He cannot do his job without assistance he can trust, as regards both their moral probity and their competence. Now He is learning what it is to succeed a notoriously liberal bishop who cultivated by example a culture of disobedience.
I know most of you have him sentenced and hung. I'm not ready to reach a verdict. If half of what this article says is true, he dithered and concealed. I'm waiting to see if he comes out of this broken or energized to do the right thing and clean house.
It would be wonderful, just once, to see the bishops rise to the challenge and do the right thing (in this case, a complete audit of every single Catholic Charities or other Catholic social services organization controlled by the bishops).
I don’t think that this was DiLorenzo’s policy or that he knew or even suspected that it was the policy of the local CC until this happened. Maybe his predecessor did, maybe not; but I doubt that it’s the sort of knowledge that would have been written down in a folder on his desk when he took office.
However, it’s pretty depressing to see that they - not only DiLorenzo but, apparently, all of the bishops - are handling this in a way that is so wierdly out of touch with the fundamental moral and ethical problem and its implications. Instead, their words seem to be coming out of a law office little better than one of those personal injury firms that advertises on billboards near the highway.
What is it going to take to make them wake up and act as shepherds (or even as Catholics) again?
The cover up alone (the baby murder happened in January, it was months before reported, and then not reported on the initiative of the bishop) is reason enough for the bishop to resign.
If there was such a serious problem with his diocese's Catholic Charities, he OWED it to the people of his diocese to bring it out into the open, to publicly excoriate those who assisted with murder, to publicly excommunicate any Catholics involved, and to essentially conduct an Inquisition of the entire organization IN PUBLIC.
Dioceses take up collections for their diocesan Catholic Charities. That his diocese's Catholic Charities was so damned corrupt was a fact that he ABSOLUTELY OWED his flock, so that they could be completely informed about the organization to which they were being asked to donate money.
His failure to do so makes him a co-conspirator in fraud, and at a minimum, an accessory after the fact to the murder of an unborn baby.
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