Statement from Archbishop O’Brien

Holy Saturday, April 3, 2010 Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, Archbishop of Baltimore, issued the following statement in response to Father Raniero Cantalamessa’s Good Friday comments at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome: Father Cantalamessa’s words on Good Friday, somehow linking the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal with anti-Semitism, were unfortunate and reprehensible. They pose harm to Catholic-Jewish relations in Baltimore and around the world and I personally denounce them. Rightly upset and embarrassed as we are by the scandal we are enduring as Catholics, as frustrated as we are by the sometimes unfair coverage in certain elements of the press, nothing justifies this insensitive, harmful and regrettable comparison. On behalf of the Catholic Church in Baltimore, I offer apologies to our friends in the Jewish community, to victims of clergy sexual abuse, and to anyone offended by Father Cantalamessa’s personal views.