A couple came up to me after mass to express their thought that the religious freedom of us, (the Muslims, Evangelicals, and conservative Jews) isn’t threatened.  All they would allow me to say is,”You’re wrong”.  Then the wife of the two expressed her thought that the bishops have no moral authority after the way the clergy sexual abuse issue has been handled.  Because the bishops were, how can I put this delicately, assholes, in their handling of the abuse situation, the abusers and most especially the victims/survivors, (I still prefer the term ‘victims’ because abuse is all-encompassing and the results never truly go away).  So that is the recent fallout of the spineless way in which this situation has been handled…the moral authority that the Church bestows on bishops has been compromised and they have no one to blame but themselves.  (Of course that won’t stop them from blaming everyone else, that’s their M.O.).  Bishops have compromised their moral authority