Dear Lord, can it get any worse?

摘要

It has been a fearful year for Roman Catholics in Boston. Ever more ghastly revelations of sexual abuse by priests have been followed by ever more ghastly revelations of inaction by the church hierarchy. This week the archdiocese at last released 11,000 pages of records showing that it allowed abusers to continue to work as priests well into the 1990s―long after the "reformation" of its ways that Cardinal Bernard Law claimed had taken place. Now the archdiocese may make history by declaring bankruptcy. There is no shortage of assets. The church's property is said to be worth at least $1.3 billion, and even that figure does not take account of hundreds of acres of undeveloped land. The problem is ready cash. Charitable giving and church collections have unsurprisingly dropped, and the annual cardinal's appeal did poorly. The archdiocese has had to cut its $25m operating budget by a third, hurting poorer parishes and many church programmes. Its banks are cutting credit; its insurers are balking at paying settlements.