To save the church

Catholics can no longer settle for words and half measures. The all-male priesthood must go.

This is the editor’s letter in the current issue of The Week magazine.

Decades after I graduated from a Catholic, all-boys high school in Brooklyn, I received a letter notifying me that Brother Kyrin Powers, the principal during my years there, had been accused of molesting students. Online, I found several posts by students expanding on Powers' predations. "The things he did to me and other students were horrendous," one wrote. "I'm sure he is burning in hell." (Powers had escaped earthly justice, in the unlikely event that there was to be any, by dying.) During my high school years, I had no inkling of any abuses, but even to my adolescent eye, many of the celibate Xaverian brothers who ran the place seemed either vaguely unhappy or openly angry about their constricted lives. A few had obvious drinking problems. Several quit the order. Before class one day, one brother flew into a spittle-flecked rage when he saw a group of grinning boys looking out the window at a pretty girl. "What are you, animals?" he shouted, and stormed from the room.

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William Falk

William Falk is editor-in-chief of The Week, and has held that role since the magazine's first issue in 2001. He has previously been a reporter, columnist, and editor at the Gannett Westchester Newspapers and at Newsday, where he was part of two reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes.