NCR Editorial Staff

We say: The real emergency on this side of the border is our refusal to square up with the truth of the displacement of thousands so desperate to survive and to seek a better life for their families they are willing to risk the dangers of the long trek from Central America.

We say: Can one imagine the circumstance where Jesus, who makes such elaborate claims about children, would first seek to make sure the documentation and protocol for their parents is all in proper order before summoning the little ones to approach him?

Throughout the church people are wondering some version of: "What do we do next? What can we do?" It is a question that often arises out of a place of agony, a disposition of futility. But there is no Resurrection without it.

We say: The recent meeting has the potential to mark a large step forward in the church's efforts to deal with the scandal and regain the trust of Catholics and others. It is essential, however, to note two factors that significantly qualify the meeting's success.

We say: Some concrete measures must be taken if the church is to find the path to healing and credibility and if trust between hierarchy and the rest of the community is ever to be restored. Those measures must include a firm, clear, global definition of zero tolerance and what happens when a member of the clergy is accused. 

We say: While politics has resulted in a packed Supreme Court that might well overturn Roe v. Wade in the not-too-distant future, the needle hasn't moved much in terms of the general culture.

We say: Beneath the alarmism, fear-mongering and sheer fiction dispensed by this administration is the question: Will the institutions that mold democracy and hold it together survive?

Once upon a time, the word twitter was an onomatopoeic rendering of sounds of rather little consequence. Today, a tweet can send the political and religious universes spinning out of orbit for days.

We say: If the sex abuse crisis and the bishops' mishandling of it was the impetus for the U.S. bishops' recent retreat, why was it taken off the agenda as a topic to be dealt with? 

We say: In the abuse crisis, it is not the sins of the individuals that should now be the focus. It is the institutional corruption that they came to represent.

Editorial: Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is NCR's choice for Catholic newsmaker of the year. His story provides ample demonstration of how the sex-abuse scandal, horrible as it is, is merely symptomatic of deeper maladies within the clerical culture, especially at the hierarchical level.

We say: The techniques that have served President Donald Trump well to this point have become useless and now serve to provide new, fresh fodder to the investigators.

We say: This season of expectation, of wonder at the possibility of God with and among us, is a perfect time to sink into that authentic tradition and to contemplate where we've gone off track.

We say: The latest pastoral letter on racism, in many respects, is a worthy addition to the U.S. bishops' other writing on this evil, but it is reminiscent of the cautious approach taken by white religious leaders in the South during the civil rights era.

We say: The culture of the Catholic clergy and the state of the episcopacy have come under intense scrutiny as a result of the abuse crisis, but what happened at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' meeting is not encouraging.

NCR Editorial: This time, it has to be different. Bishops, the prolonged abuse scandal would suggest that you've not done very well taking stock of yourselves.

We say: The real significance of the midterm results lies deeper in the details of who won, where the Democratic wins occurred beyond the national offices, and how it all happened.

We say: Sidelined for too long, women aren't going away. Perhaps the utter scandal to which an all-male clerical culture has subjected the church will finally force a change.

We say: As the church lives through a fundamental transition, some who ignored the abuse crisis for decades now seize on it to smear Francis and plant the church of their dreams.

We say: Remarkably, Archbishop Óscar Romero and Pope Paul VI shared a martyrdom that built the bridge that supports a single trajectory, inspired by the Holy Spirit, that will renew the church and reveal again the mystery of Jesus as the engine of history.