In his 1996 campaign...

...for president, Bob Dole famously asked, "Where is the outrage?" (He lost.)

And that's also my question after reading in the Times today, "Philadelphia Priests Accused by Grand Jury of Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up." (My emphasis.)

Where is the outrage? Are the pews any emptier? Are the Church's coffers any less full? Where is the outrage?

A grand jury on Thursday accused the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of failing to stop the sexual abuse of children more than five years after a grand jury report documented abuse by more than 50 priests.

The new report said a senior church official charged with investigating allegations of sexual abuse by priests had in fact allowed some of those accused to remain in posts that gave them continued access to children. It charged him with endangering the welfare of minors and accused three priests and a teacher of raping two boys between 1996 and 1999.

“By no means do we believe that these were the only two parishioners who were abused during this period,” the report said.

At least 37 priests who are subject to “substantial evidence of abuse” are still in roles that bring them into contact with children, the new report said, and 10 of those have been in place since before 2005, when the last grand jury made its allegations.
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“These are simply not the actions of an institution that is serious about ending sexual abuse of children,” the report said.