If Jesus were here today, would He not be running through American cathedrals, knocking over tables as He did with the money changers in the Temple? “According to scripture,” He said in the Gospel of Matthew, “my house will be called a house of prayer; but you are turning it into a bandits’ den.” The words are a fitting indictment of the men who are accused of committing a moral theft of unimaginable wickedness — in their thoughts and in their words, in what they did and in what they failed to do.

The innocence of children was stolen, as was the church’s sanctity and the faith of congregants, many of whom are today asking how they can possibly continue to believe that this is the one true church that Christ founded through Peter. They do not expect the church to be perfect; even St. Peter, after all, denied Christ three times. But they do expect to find the reflection of Christ there.

Yes. Christ, not Eichmann. Watch some of this video tribute Marywood University made to Bishop Timlin in 2012, and listen to him talk. He sounds about as evil as a cup of milky tea, and just as banal. But real wickedness hid behind that dull, folksy façade, as the grand jury report reveals. Thing is, it no doubt hid itself from Bishop Timlin too.

UPDATE: Reader CatherineNY comments:

I went and googled to find out more about Bishop Timlin, and found various stories about him objecting to being at events with Tip O’Neill, Chris Matthews and others because of their views on abortion. Because, presumably, the Bishop believes that life begins at conception and abortion is the taking of human life. How he could then justify his handling of the case of Father Thomas Skotek, the priest who had impregnated a 16 year old girl and procured an abortion for her, is beyond me. According to the PA grand jury report, “Diocesan records obtained by the Grand Jury showed that Bishop James C.Timlin
was fully aware of the conduct by October,
1986.” That includes the procuring of the abortion. It was in 1985 that the Bishop objected to the awarding of an honorary degree to Tip O’Neill (https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/14/us/catholic-bishop-won-t-join-scranton-honors-for-o-neill.html) and in 2003 that he refused to attend the University of Scranton graduation at which Chris Matthews was to be honored. As far as we know, Tip O’Neill and Chris Matthews never actually arranged an abortion, unlike Father Skotec, for whom Bishop Timlin had so much sympathy, and whom he tried so hard to return to ministry (successfully, according to the bio of Father Skotek, who was not removed from ministry until 2002). How is any lay Catholic supposed to listen to these guys on any matters of sexual morality after this? Or on anything?