Shepherds, Hands off Those Sheep

Giotto: Jesus clears the moneylenders from the temple.

It has come to this: two priests arrested for indecent exposure.

To be clear, the current crisis in the US church is not about any new revelations of child sexual abuse. That problem was never worse inside than outside the Catholic clergy, and by all accounts it has been drastically reduced by policies in place for decades. The charges of child abuse in the recent Pennsylvania report are almost all quite old. Consistently, abusers have been in the generation born in the 1930s and ordained in the 1960s—not since.

The problem is hypocritical clergy. The very problem the New Testament cared most about: Pharisaism. There were cynical coverups, and those responsible for the coverups are still in place, protecting and promoting one another. The generation born in the 1930s, after all, have now reached the top of the hierarchy. 

There is also now, thanks to their influence and example, a large body of priests who are priests not because they have a vocation, but because it is a convenient cover and platform to practice an actively homosexual lifestyle. Because, hey, nobody here really takes this religion thing seriously, do they? And the cynical here drive out the good.

There is also a likelihood that such actively homosexual priests will prey sexually on teenagers, destroying their faith.

Time to clean house.