NCR Podcast: Updates on the clergy sex abuse crisis

As the podcast comes back from a summer hiatus, we take a long look at the recent months' news around clergy sexual abuse that has re-opened a wound for many Catholics around the world.

On the show today:

• Dennis Coday, NCR editor-in-chief
• Joshua J. McElwee, NCR Vatican correspondent
• Heidi Schlumpf, national correspondent for NCR
• Michael Sean Winters, who covers politics and religion in his NCR column Distinctly Catholic

Background reading:

• In late June, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick announced that he was stepping down from active ministry after allegations of sexual abuse were found "credible and substantiated." McCarrick renounced his place in the College of Cardinals a few weeks later in the wake of revelations that he sexually harassed or abused several young men during his career in the church hierarchy.
• After the release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report, Michael Sean Winters wrote that bishops must go beyond making statements and "lead the church in contrition and penance."
• More than 3,000 theologians, educators and lay leaders in August called for all U.S. bishops to submit their resignations to Pope Francis, much like Chile's 34 bishops did in May after revelations of sexual abuse and corruption, as a public act of penance.
• Aug. 26: Former Vatican ambassador Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò published an 11-page letter claiming there was a systemic cover-up by church leaders of allegations that McCarrick was sexually abusing seminarians. The Viganò letter is a coordinated attack on Francis, wrote Michael Sean Winters. The pope dismissed the accusations aboard the papal flight from Dublin. If after all this, you're still wondering who exactly Viganò is, NCR's Brian Roewe has an explanation of Viganò's career and history at the center of Vatican controversies.
• For commentary and more reporting on the clergy sex abuse crisis in the church, follow our Accountability channel.

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