COLORADO SPRINGS – The sexual abuse scandals that have plagued the Catholic Church are hitting home.
On Thursday, the Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs took to social media to answer some tough questions. It comes just a day after a pretty big announcement from Pope Francis. He called the president of every episcopal conference in the world to Rome in February to deal with this subject.
In Colorado Springs, people were invited to submit questions to the local diocese prior to Thursday’s Facebook live video with Bishop Michael Sheridan who spoke for about 30 minutes. These are some of the questions he addressed:
- How can Catholics in the pews keep their faith in light of these scandals?
- Wouldn’t it make sense to get rid of priestly celibacy?
- One person asked Sheridan to address the problem of homosexuality in the clerical ranks as a contributing factor to these scandals.
- How do you address this abuse issue with someone you are trying to evangelize to the Catholic Church?
Sheridan wanted to enforce to the public that these sex abuse cases need to be objectively investigated, not by bishops or the pope, but by a committee of lay professionals who will dig into all of this.
Bishop Sheridan said, “Unless we know why this happened, how could it be covered up for so long, how could it be hidden, I think it’s going to be more difficult to prevent it in the future.”
While Sheridan said there are a lot of things the diocese doesn’t know the answer to, this won’t be swept under the rug.
Another question addressed during the discussion was whether The Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs will cooperate with outside investigators such as the state attorney general? Sheridan explained that the diocese has always cooperated with law enforcement and that it has nothing to hide.
