We Can Only Hope

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is meeting all week in Washington D.C. Today, the group's president, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory said he believes the Catholic church has "turned the corner" on the sexual abuse crisis, but that the process of restoring trust will take years. See the entire Boston Globe story.

There's much more on the agenda, including how to get the Eucharist to parishes that lack priests. According to an AP story on the meeting, more than 3,000 of the U.S.'s 19,000 parishes do not have a resident priest. AP's source? The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

Expect everything that happens this week at the conference to be looked at closely by the laity hoping for major reforms. And that group of laity won't be shy about commenting on it all.

Tom Roberts, editor of National Catholic Reporter, has a great mantra for the laity, not just this week but in the weeks, months and years to follow. This mantra should be repeated anytime the heirarchy talks to members of the church. "The laity needs to say, at every level, 'We simply won't accept anything less than adult conversation.'"
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