Vatican has more to apologize for than just sexual abuse?

Last week I refound an old acquaintance. We used to get into long, interesting conversations at a favorite swimmin' hole. She's very elderly -- I was grateful to see that she's still alive. She is a Sister of Charity, a tireless social worker (in civvies); her colleagues have finally persuaded her to retire at an ailing 80(though she still "looks in at the office") because of her increasing age, heart problems. We caught up with each other as we dangled our legs at the edge of the pool.

The ability of the Church, she says, to continue its social work is diminishing rapidly due not to the current economy but to the tremendous outflow of dollars in lawsuits about pedophilia -- and more on the way. The American Catholic church is in real financial trouble.

That's bad enough, she said, but there's another matter -- a morale issue -- which may seriously endanger it, and that's the continuing attitude of the Vatican towards pedophilia which it tends to pass off as an "American nuisance," much less troubling to the Pope than the hit-and-run death in Arizona caused by a Catholic archbishop. The thousands of incidents of child molestation by priests don't GET to the Vatican the way a single accidental death has, and that bewilders and horrifies those who work in the Church, like my friend, leading to troubling doubts about the Church in general.

If the Church loses people of this kind, it's cooked.