Many keystrokes over another sex-and-cover-up revelation, and I admit I was surprised to see the surprise over it, as reported here at Crux.
That people in power impose their will on others in the Church canonically and intellectually is no surprise. That it happens in vulnerable relationships, likewise. It doesn’t seem to me that Opus Dei would be any different, especially since noted conservative bishops and locations like Law, Nienstedt, Finn, McCarrick, Nebraska, etc., would be found out.
Back in 2015, NYT journalist Mark Oppenheimer wrote of a magnetic touch.
As Pope Francis is breathing life into the Catholic left, Father McCloskey is defibrillating the Catholic right.
In Palo Alto, where Opus Dei sent him in 2013 after a period in Chicago, Father McCloskey and I shared a late-afternoon cocktail. He talked about his college years, his time on Wall Street and his calling to become a priest. I had expected to be overwhelmed by charisma and instead was drawn in by gentleness. He listened more than he spoke, asked about my family, touched my arm several times.
Is this peripheral testimony telling? One cocktail, good listening skills, and personal touch are innocent in isolation. Yet this priest has a backstory that gives a bit of perspective.
It’s like a broken record: theological orthodoxy is no curative pill for sin. That’s sin that includes sex, abuse, and the covering up of embarrassing episodes.
