Jesuitical

The Catholic Church, according to this week’s guest, is facing not one but two crises. The first is the sexual abuse of children and its cover-up; the second is a complete break down of trust in church leadership. Kerry Alys Robinson has been working to confront both over a decade as the founding executive director of Leadership Roundtable, a group that brings together clergy, religious and laypeople to promote the best practices in the areas of finance, human resources and management. We ask Kerry about the biggest obstacles to greater lay involvement in church governance, what concrete steps the bishops and laypeople can take to restore trust and protect children, and how women and mothers, in particular, can lead the way. In Signs of the Times this week, we take a look at the religious make-up of the new Congress and discuss an update to the church’s teaching on hysterectomies. Plus: The U.S. bishops are on retreat to pray about the sex abuse crisis. Should they be doing something instead? And finally, a