By CHRISTOPHER MANION

While Catholics await the white smoke to rise above the Sistine Chapel, we pray that the cardinals gathered there will hear the voice of the Holy Spirit and act on it.

Amid the anticipation, however, a stubborn fact remains: whatever their choice of a new Supreme Pontiff, the challenge confronting the American laity will remain. And that challenge is grave indeed.

The American hierarchy suffers from exhaustion, a historic numbness of spirit that can no longer be disguised. Their leaders have allowed chaos and confusion to be sown. Some quietly blame Pope Francis, and he certainly deserves it; some blame the laity — haven’t millions left the pews? But few bishops blame themselves.

When Bishop Joseph E. Strickland of Tyler, Texas, suggested in 2018 that they do a little soul-searching, his days were numbered. Since 2002 they had hung together, lest they hang separately, continuing their cover-ups and billion-dollar payoffs. The guilty refused to quit — every one of them — so Strickland had to go. How dare he suggest that our shepherds confront the blatant problem of sodomy in the hierarchy and the years of silence regarding the Church’s moral teaching that went with it?               

They have refused to address it themselves, and frankly, they’re very upset when we do.

So, ever since the abuse-and-cover-up scandals, they’ve been on cruise control. Spurred by the desire to “move on,” they’ve relied on massive immigration as both a virtue-signaling reputation rehab program and a vital source of income for chanceries besieged by abuse lawsuits and settlements.

Hundreds of parishes shut down, churches sold, and pews emptied, but the guilty haven’t quit — simply because they don’t have to.

“Only the pope can fire us,” they chanted in 2002, as they voted to exempt themselves from their onerous Charter For The Protection Of Children And Young People.

Of course, they should have added, “And Bishops.”

Survival — A Pathetic Path

In the years since 2002, our shepherds have unanimously refused to deliver on their promise of transparency and accountability — and for good reason: the McCarrick scandal might have finally come to light only in 2018, but his crimes were widely known for years. Hadn’t he named many of them? Hadn’t he used his world-class fundraising skills to grease their squeaky wheels?

The late Fr. Paul Mankowski, S.J., a brilliant biblical scholar and a fearless priest, put it this way — two decades ago, while Theodore E. McCarrick was still riding high:

“In short, many bishops and superiors, lacking integrity, lack moral courage. Lacking moral courage, they can never be reformers, can never uproot a problem, but can only plead for tolerance and healing and reconciliation. I am here sketching only the best-case scenario, where the bishop’s adventures were brief, without issue, and 20 years in his past. In cases where the man continues his sexual exploits as a bishop, he is of course wholly compromised and the blackmail proportionately disastrous.”

Untold dozens of denizens of “Uncle Ted” McCarrick undoubtedly shuddered in their chanceries upon reading Mankowski’s words.

They knew. They all knew.

But the sky didn’t come crashing down upon them. They were safe. So they dug in deeper.

Mankowski, however, isn’t finished. He describes “a factor that is at once a result of earlier failures and a cause of many subsequent ones: I mean sexual blackmail. Most of the men who are bishops and superiors today were in the seminary or graduate school in the 1960s and 1970s. In most countries of the Western world these places were in a kind of disciplinary free-fall for 10 or 15 years. A very high percentage of churchmen who are now in positions of authority were sexually compromised during that period.”

That was true then, and it is unfortunately true now. In fact, in the 20 years since, the second generation of McCarrick acolytes, associates, and hangers-on have solidified their hold on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

While McCarrick’s crimes can no longer be ignored, his spawn have survived and prospered. Blase J. Cupich, Joseph W. Tobin, Wilton D. Gregory, and Robert W. McElroy are all cardinals. So are Kevin J. Farrell — who is in charge of the conclave! — and Roger M. Mahony, who spent a cool billion dollars of the faithful’s donations to stay off the witness stand and out of jail. When his successor barred him from public ministry, Mahony pirouetted around Rome — once more, we heard the brazen boast: “Only the pope can fire me!”

And with a dark reminder that nothing has changed, last week Mahony disgraced the funeral ceremonies honoring Pope Francis not only by showing up, but by being selected to close the casket — as though that would close the chapter on the foul fruits of his criminal generation.

How did that happen? He can thank Cardinal Farrell, who owes his entire rise in the hierarchy to McCarrick.

When McCarrick died a month ago without spilling the beans, a giant sigh of relief rose from chanceries throughout the land. His fawning acolytes and beneficiaries didn’t have to worry.

Not about Ted. But they have other problems.

Revival? Or Recrudescence?

The early years after the scandals and the Charter passed in a surprising spirit of normalcy. Of course, in February 2002, Bishop Farrell — McCarrick’s roommate at the time — told the Knights of Malta that the scandals were “over,” a mantra that we’ve often heard since. Sure, lawsuits continued for years, but not one bishop quit.

And life went on. In November 2008, Wilton Gregory exulted in Obama’s victory. It was “a great step forward for humanity and a sign that in the United States the problem of racial discrimination has been overcome,” he said.

And the Obama years went well for the USCCB, except for Obama’s embarrassing betrayal on abortion in his healthcare bill. The American bishops had endorsed national healthcare since 1919, so naturally Obamacare seemed like a dream come true.

Unfortunately, Obama lies a lot, and he lied to our bishops — who believed him until it was too late. Hey, didn’t Sr. Carol Keehan, the million-dollar-a-year head of the Catholic Health Association, proudly attend Obama’s signing of the bill in 2010?

Obama steadily raised the amount of federal taxpayer funding the bishops received during his presidency, but they hit some bumps in the road during Trump’s first term, when he cut Obama’s funding in half.

But no problem: When Joe Biden came to the White House, he turned the faucet back on.

So rich in funding, and yet — our shepherds collapsed in spirit.

The entire mess was simply tragic. Here was the American hierarchy, faced by the first Catholic president since John F. Kennedy, and they folded their hand.

They were paralyzed, rendered deaf and dumb by a combination of dependence on federal funding and fear of “Catholic Joe,” whose notorious temper, when combined with his access to secular power, knew few limits. If they had come down hard on the most pro-abortion president in history, he easily could call upon his attorney general, a virulent anti-Catholic, to look into the scandals that, in spite of Kevin Farrell’s ancient dictum, were still very much not over.

They lost their spirit. And now they’ve lost their money.

So whoever might be elected in the Sistine Chapel in coming weeks, very little will change here at home. The American hierarchy is solidly in place. Pope Francis has appointed several McCarrick associates as cardinals, and next week they will all be in Vatican City voting on his successor.

So, as Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen told us 50 years ago, it’s up to us, the laity.

And we’ve got a mountain to climb.