Waiting for Godot to Leave

A scene from the Riot in the Cathedral, where protesters attempted to stop the appointment of Juan Barros as bishop of Osorno. Conservatives are rightly angry at liberal bias in the media.  There's a lot of it. But the game works both ways.  There's a huge conservative bias as well, and it follows a pattern. The pattern is typically this.  Someone in the Church does something horrifically awful and outrageously embarrassing, something that can't possibly be defending or excused.  For several days the truth is out there and none of my DC (Defensive Catholic) friends comment on it either here or on Facebook or elsewhere.  An awkward silence falls and the truth is simply ignored. Then (typically) the Catholic Defense League or an organization like Catholic News Agency pipes up with a defense of the situation that is a real stretch of the imagination, but that provides a handy template for the reactionaries to use, and suddenly comboxes are filled ev...

Protesters attempting to stop Juan Barros from being officially installed as their bishop. Click here to see a BBC video of the near riot that erupted at the cathedral at Osorno, Chile where protesters tried to stop the ordination of their new bishop, Juan Barros. Barros is implicated in a cover up of sexual abuse. The background is this.  In a situation that's very similar to that of Fr. Maciel of the Legion of Christ, a Chilean priest, Fernando Karadima, played up to the wealthy conservative elements in Chilean Catholic society and established a kind of parallel Church, cultivating a group of followers, some of whom became priests - and one of whom is now the bishop of Osorno.  And all the while this Fr. Karadima was sexually abusing boys and young men. He had trained five bishops and dozens of priests, acting as a spiritual leader and father figure for young men who later accused him of molesting them. ( The New York Times, Feb. 18, 2011 ) Complaints and red ...