An Open Letter to American Bishops

This letter from Russell Shaw is in the current edition of Crisis magazine.

From June 14 to June 20 the U.S. bishops will gather in Denver behind closed doors for a meeting of extraordinary importance. The “special assembly” of the hierarchy will weigh alternative approaches to the crisis now gripping American Catholicism—a crisis which, though greatly intensified by the sex-abuse scandal, involves many problems and issues besides the sexual delinquency of some priests. The bishops face three options—along with the virtually unthinkable option of doing nothing. These are a plenary council for the Church in the United States, a regional synod, and unspecified new initiatives by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The debate in Denver will set the stage for a decisive vote at the USCCB meeting in November in Washington. In anticipation of these crucial deliberations, Crisis is publishing an open letter to the bishops by Russell Shaw, a writer who has observed Church affairs at close hand for many years.

Letter here.