Cupich’s lackluster response to alarming undercount of Catholic clergy sex abuse won’t cut it

The public, especially abuse survivors and faithful members of the Catholic Church, deserve more than Archbishop Blase Cupich’s lackluster response to a new report on underreported clergy sex abuse. (Brian Jackson/Sun-Times Media)

Now is a moment of reckoning for the state’s Roman Catholic dioceses — a time to come clean and shine a full light on child sexual abuse within the institution and, where still possible, bring the abusers and their enablers to justice.

Cardinal Blase Cupich has an open door and the responsibility to do just that with this week’s release of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s nearly 700-page report that indicated how alarmingly widespread the problem has been in Illinois: The number of child sexual abusers within the church is four times higher than what the dioceses have previously reported.