Clearly, Cardinal Donald Wuerl was right to resign as Washington archbishop, but his fall has sent mixed signals about the Vatican’s resolve to get tough on clerical sex abuse.

Good riddance to confidentiality clauses. If one outcome captures the spirit of the Canadian bishops’ new document on sex abuse, that might be it. No more confidentially clauses.

We have grown weary of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò. Weary of his accusations. Weary of his recklessness. Weary of his insolence. Weary of his betrayals. Weary of his cunning.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was long, emotional and painful, but necessary as an act of a nation’s contrition after facilitating decades of abuse at residential schools. 

Canadians take water for granted. We have more ocean shoreline than any nation on Earth and our freshwater lakes and rivers cover almost 12 per cent of Canada’s landmass.

“When a bit of time has passed,” said Pope Francis, perhaps he would answer serious allegations that he permitted a cardinal cited for sexual abuse to return to public ministry.

By categorically rejecting the death penalty, the Church has finally removed an unsettling contradiction to its teaching that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death. 

The soul-crushing case of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick is yet another example of one of God’s shepherds doing the devil’s work in a Church failing still to wash away what Pope Benedict XVI called the filth of clerical sexual abuse.

It’s probably a safe bet that Ontario’s new premier has never read Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae, which reaffirmed the Church’s teaching on marriage, parenthood, procreation and contraception.