National Catholic Reporter broke the news today that the Brazilian church may be about to discover patterns of sex abuse like those in the U.S. (Sex abuse in Brazil, NCR.) You might have heard me critique NCR's reporter, John Allen Jr., in this space for focusing too much on Rome's "Latin" culture of deliberation and for showing too little anger around the areas where the Church needs to change (although I admit the fault could be in those who look for editorializing from a journalist.) At any rate, Rome has a culture of deliberation, John Allen Jr. says. Hear this: I hereby predict that Rome will jump on the problems in Brazil like a Black Friday shopper on a discount TiVo. The church of the Global South is providing much of the energy for Catholicism in this moment in terms of vocations and new members, while concurrently Catholicism in Latin America is losing ground to charismatic evangelical Protestant movements. And while Brazil has been home to some troublesome signs of progressive Catholic thought--birthing Catholics for a Free Choice and advocating condoms at Carnival, for example--they're still the world's largest Catholic country, and emotionally and culturally closer to Rome than we godless Americans, who expect to have our crises of faith in the clergy handled in a hot minute, for pete's sake. Stay tuned, and pray for the church in Brazil, and especially for those whom the church in Brazil has most horribly failed.