YOU NEED TO ADMIT THE PROBLEM TO SOLVE IT

"The Roman Catholic Church is “holed beneath the waterline” and may take generations to recover from the sex abuse scandals, according to the first English bishop to speak out on the crisis.

The Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, the Right Rev Kieran Conry, rejected accusations of media bias against the Catholic Church and said the problems of paedophile priests dominating headlines in the UK and across Europe were problems of the Church’s own making.

“The Roman Catholic Church sets itself up to be the great moral authority. When it does fail its own rigid standards, it deserves to be attacked and criticised,” he said."
Times Online

Straight (no pun intended) talk from Bishop Conry. Now if the rest of the Church leadership will just be as honest and forthright we can deal with the problem and move on. My guess is though that just as here in America the powers that be will do their best to obfuscate and spin the problem away. It won't work.

"Confess therefore your sins one to another: and pray one for another, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much." James 5:16

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity." 1 John 1:9

It really is that simple, isn't it? Confess your sins, ask for forgiveness and undo the damage.

"Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you." Matthew 7:7

Isn't this the good news? Isn't this what you have been teaching us? Ask forgiveness and through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross you shall receive it. Then why can't the Church seem to follow it's own teaching? Why are we bombarded here in America with lawyers and hidden abusers in our parishes? Why, if a priest has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be guilty of this terrible crime, why can't the Church just admit it, ask forgiveness and do its penance? Even if this means destruction of the physical institution. Don't they trust the promises of Christ?

"And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Matthew 16:18

Why does the Church leadership have so little faith in the God of creation?

"Now if God clothe in this manner the grass that is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more you, O ye of little faith?" Luke 12:28

Is it because the leaders of the Catholic Church have become too much of the world? Are they more concerned about their place at the table than the souls of their flock?

"No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." Luke 16:13

I don't know the answer; that's for God to understand. What I do know is that something is terribly wrong with the Church. From sexual abuse to the abuse of our rights in the health care debacle, the ability to speak the truth has become almost a forgotten skill.

But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil. Matthew 5:37

It really is that simple, isn't it?