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Almost exactly a decade ago, the case of Fr. Alex Anderson was resolved in the St. Louis archdiocese. Remember this case the next time Pope Francis claims the church gets "picked on" over how it deals with child sex crimes. 

Catholic officials hastily cry "media bias" at many stories about clergy sex crimes and cover ups. 

The Associated Press' Rome bureau reports that Pope Francis is now “using the defensive rhetoric of the Vatican from a decade ago.”

Bishops consistently claim they aren't responsible for child sex crimes and cover ups committed by religious order clerics. "They're totally separate from us," bishops repeatedly say about the Jesuits, Salesians, Benedictines and the like.

Our first SNAP member who played in the NFL and to publicly speak out about his childhood trauma, Roy Simmons, has passed away, and our hearts go out to his family during this difficult and painful time.

Many assume or believe that Pope Francis is making significant changes in the church. We're pretty skeptical of this claim. 

In less than a year Pope Francis has changed the image of the Church by preaching tolerance and wading into crowds to embrace the sick. Few doubt his sincerity. But there’s one area in which the Church hasn’t changed in image or substance: Its stance on child sex abuse by the clergy.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child meets this week in Geneva to, among other things, investigate child sex abuse by Catholic clergy. The Vatican is sending representatives and announced it will put together another panel to look into the issue.

Today’s news out of Rome should dispel any notions that this pope is “better” on abuse than his predecessors.

Today, Pope Francis officially put out the welcome mat for child molesting clerics across the globe.

Today, the Vatican has told Polish prosecutors that it will NOT extradite Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski who stands accused of sexually assaulting at least five children.

First, we should all thank Billy Doe, his family, the police and the prosecutors whose courage made Lynn’s conviction possible. And we should thank prosecutors who plan to appeal this ruling. We of course hope the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will overturn it. And we call on Philly Catholic officials to keep Lynn permanently off the job or at least until this case is finally resolved.

Literally thousands of U.S. Catholic officials have done precisely what Msgr. Lynn did and were never even charged or exposed, much less convicted. And we believe that hundreds or thousands of chancery officials across the U.S. are doing – right now - exactly what Msgr. Lynn did.

Finally, finally, there’s a tiny, tiny ray of hope with this pope and the abuse/cover up crisis.

It’s not his signs of humility.

It’s not his compassionate words.

It’s not his touching gestures.

It’s his ever-so-slight snub of two dreadfully corrupt prelates – Cardinal Raymond Burke and Cardinal Justin Rigali.