A well-known Catholic intellectual referred to the year 2002 as the Long Lent—a period in which shame was just heaped upon the Church because of the mishandling of sexual abuse cases by members of the clergy.
Indeed, Father Richard John Neuhaus’s term was appropriate: revelations about the Archdiocese of Boston’s mishandling of abusive priests did not end tidily with a bright Easter Sunday morning. What began as investigative reports by The Boston Globe on Jan. 6, 2002, just seemed to snowball for the rest of the year, with other journalistic inquiries around the country finding similar malpractice in other dioceses. While many Catholic leading lights went on the defensive, viewing the exposés as an attack on the moral authority of the Church, American bishops themselves revamped the policies that should have prevented the mishandling in the first place. The year ended with the resignation of Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law, and it would seem that “Lent” was finally coming to an end.
http://aleteia.org/2015/11/05/the-long-lent-of-sex-abuse-survivors-and-the-road-to-recovery/
Indeed, Father Richard John Neuhaus’s term was appropriate: revelations about the Archdiocese of Boston’s mishandling of abusive priests did not end tidily with a bright Easter Sunday morning. What began as investigative reports by The Boston Globe on Jan. 6, 2002, just seemed to snowball for the rest of the year, with other journalistic inquiries around the country finding similar malpractice in other dioceses. While many Catholic leading lights went on the defensive, viewing the exposés as an attack on the moral authority of the Church, American bishops themselves revamped the policies that should have prevented the mishandling in the first place. The year ended with the resignation of Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law, and it would seem that “Lent” was finally coming to an end.
http://aleteia.org/2015/11/05/the-long-lent-of-sex-abuse-survivors-and-the-road-to-recovery/