Nothing will change until lay Catholics hold leaders accountable.
Had the populations of Dresden and other Axis cities decided not to go to work in their factories that were making tanks, bombs, and other munitions to fuel the Axis war machines, Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki might never have been obliterated. Even though they were not fighting in their countries’ armed forces, countless German and Japanese civilians perished during the aerial bombings because they were complicit in the horrors orchestrated by their leaders, Adolf Hitler and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo.
Owing to a propagandized media, most Germans and Japanese were uninformed about all the atrocities being committed that led to between 70 and 85 million deaths. This is very similar to lay Catholics who are not well informed by the Pope, bishops, and their parish priests about the true scope of the clerical sex abuse crisis that has destroyed countless lives and has led over forty U.S. dioceses, eparchies, and religious orders to file for bankruptcy. Because of complicit Catholic media sources, most Catholics in archdioceses like Washington, New York, and Chicago are clueless about how Cardinals Robert McElroy, Timothy Dolan, and Blase Cupich, have systematically been covering up sexual predation and homosexual misconduct, and how these corrupt Church leaders have unjustly reprised against whistleblower priests and seminarians.
Like most German and Japanese citizens who were not directly involved in atrocities carried out in concentration and POW camps, most Catholic laity likewise are not guilty of clerical sex abuse, cover-ups, and reprisals. However, one could argue that financial contributions on the part of the laity make them material participants in the immoral, and sometimes criminal, behavior of priests and bishops. As a result of money contributed by the laity to their parishes, 10-20 percent of which ends up in the coffers of the Bishop, canon lawyers can be employed to unjustly laicize whistleblower priests, while civil lawyers can be retained to defend accused sexually abusive bishops and priests to the tune of around $10-20 billion.
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