For those of us old enough to remember Watergate, we learned that very often the “coverup is worse than the crime.” The same can be said about the crisis in the Catholic Church. Since 2002, when the Boston Globe broke the story about institutional cover up of the clergy sex scandal, we’ve been inundated with stories of heinous acts committed against our children. Yet, worse than the acts themselves is the lack of action on the part of bishops and cardinals who have sought first to protect the reputation of the church rather than protect innocent children. In the past two months, two “Princes of the Church” Cardinals Bevilacqua of Philadelphia and Mahony of Los Angeles have been implicated in decades of coverups of abusive and predatory priests. The Church must change or perish. The faithful will forgive “seventy times seven” but they can’t tolerate those who would prey on innocent children.