Morning Briefing

“Could I just say with all this emphasis on cover-up, the cover-up has gone on for centuries, not just in the church… It’s going on today in families, in communities, in societies. Why are you singling out the church?” he asked.

Quote is from "Media 'unfair and unjust' - Irish Bishop" above.

Doesn't it sound like, "We've always done this and so have others, so it's okay." Isn't this also the argument that parents must counter with their youngsters? Can we give this bishop an R for rationalization and an F for failure as a leader?

Can the bishops and archbishops really be this stupid? So lost in their own self-righteousness and egotism that they no longer possess any sense of self-awareness? Of conscience? The answer to the bishop's question is so self-evident that to even ask a question like this is to condemn the Church for its arrogance and hubris.

Answer: None of the other entities mentioned by the bishop have ever claimed to be a perfect society; have ever put themselves forth as all knowing, holy men superior to us laity; have ever claimed purity as its hallmark; have ever raised themselves so high on a pedestal and claimed immunity to falling off of it. As a cliche: The bigger you are...the harder you fall.

The Church needs to be singled out until it develops an acute awareness of just how horrible its cover-up is (think repeated violations of the 8th commandment throughout so many countries and near total destruction of trust, an essential element of Faith, between leadership and laity) and takes effective action to heal itself. And papal apologies are not serious corrective actions.

Some suggestion for serious corrective actions:
1. Annual meaningful financial reports for each parish and audited annual report for each diocese.
2. Trust has been so broken that our Church leaders must come before us and humble themselves (sounds weird but this is what the Church has insisted throughout its history for those who offend the Church; and if we see the Church as the People of God this is theologically correct and appropriate). This can easily be done by offering the Sacrament of Reconciliation with General Absolution on a regular basis. I mean, you just do not understand human nature if you expect most Catholics to regain trust quickly enough to go one-on-one with a priest. Nor can you expect Catholic families to encourage priestly vocations when priestly society has been shown to be so warped (it is far more than one bad apple in a bushel).
3. Establish a Feast Day in Advent to remember the scandal and pray for the Church so it never does something like this again.
4. Consider calling Vatican III to openly discuss the important matters of today because a reactionary Church is a sick Church. We laity all implicitly know that we can't go back in our lives and society as much as we often may want to; we know by intuition and experience that to try will only harm us and those we love. But it seems that is all Rome (Earth's largest dysfunctional family?) wants to do. It will only harm the fullness of our Church's living society and widen the already existing schism between the Church and its members.

In discussing the scandal a while ago, someone made the observation that if the deviate behavior, lies, misuse of funds and coverup happened within any other insitution of society that it would be closed down and completely shuttered by now. Think Enron or any the daycare schools that abused kids. Yet the Church hobbles along waiting for us all to forget. In my opinion this dramatically illustrates the power of the Church even more than the Church's refusal to cleanly and directly address the Scandal and the other issues of today. Thus only continuing news stories and public revelations are likely to bring the Church Administrative to where it finally recognizes its need for healing. Its need for massive intervention to make it one, holy, catholic and apostolic once again.