Bishop says even his efforts to denounce abuse, cover-up fell on deaf ears

ROME – In most narratives concerning Catholicism’s sexual abuse scandals, bishops generally are cast as the bad guys – insensitive bureaucrats who ignored suffering and prioritized the interests of the church over the pain of victims.

However, the nearly surreal case of Bishop Kay Schmalhausen, a former member of the Peru-based Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), illustrates that such narratives often miss the point. To hear him tell it, institutional dynamics of denial and deflection are...