Sometime in 2002, when the suggestion was first broached that the Boston archdiocese might be forced into bankruptcy by the costs of settling sex-abuse complaints, my friends who worked for the archdiocese dismissed the idea with scorn. It would never happen, they said; it would be too great a scandal. The Vatican wouldn’t allow it.

Not even 25 years later, at least 40 dioceses have sought bankruptcy protection. (Ironically, Boston is not among them.) Times have changed. What was shocking in 2002 is routine now; the news of a new bankruptcy filing barely makes a ripple.

But now the Buffalo diocese might take things a step further, asking every parish in the diocese to declare bankruptcy as well, in a legal procedure known as “Rapid-Prepackage Bankruptcy.”

From an unthinkable disgrace to a “rapid prepackage”— that’s how far our expectations have dropped in the course of generation.