Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) February 15, 2026: In the present wide-ranging and deeply personal and exceedingly digressive 4,495-word OEN article, I candidly discuss Charles Nadeau's op-ed commentary "Bankruptcy is not repentance for clergy sex abuse" in The National Catholic Reporter (dated February 9, 2026):
The National Catholic Reporter is a lay liberal American Catholic print newspaper and a website, based in Kansas City, Missouri. At the NCR website, the top ten articles of the moment are always listed. The NCR website features news stories and op-ed commentaries. The op-ed commentaries are provided by regular columnists such as Michael Sean Winters and by guest authors such as Charles Nadeau.
Now, as far as I can tell from the search feature at the NCR website, the American Jesuit scholar Walter J. Ong's name has appeared in only three NCR articles over the years.
(1) John L. Allen, Jr.'s article "Vatican eminster of culture dazzles in time of PR doldrums" (dated December 13, 2010) mention Ong once/
(2) Sister Rose Pacette's short article "You Know Nothing of My World" (dated January 10, 2011) mentions Ong parenthetically in one sentence.
(3) Dan Morris-Young's article "Gonzaga University to host conference on Jesuit philosopher Walter Ong" (dated February 5, 2014) is accompanied by a nice photograph of Ong seated at a table and smiling over a display of his books.
In any event, between October 2009 and February 2026, I wrote 691 OEN articles - each of which I wrote as the spirit moved me to write it. But never before have I been inspired to write about an article in The National Catholic Reporter - until now.
Now, Charles Nadaeu himself is a 48-year-old clergy sex abuse survivor. He was abused at the hands of clergy when he was six years old in the late 1980s.
Clergy sex abuse is not a pleasant subject to discuss.
Just to be clear here, as a young Catholic boy growing up in Kansas City, Kansas, and serving as an altar boy, which brought me into close contact with our parish priests, I was never sexually abused by a priest.
Later in my life, I was in the Jesuit order for a number of years (1979-1987), I took a vow of chastity and I lived it. But during my years in the Jesuits, I came into close contact with Jesuit priests and fellow Jesuits in training. I was never sexually abused by any Jesuit priest or by any fellow Jesuit in training.
Now, part of the priest sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church involved the priests and their sex abuse victims.
But another part of the priest sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church involved the cover up of the clergy sex abuse by bishops.
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