“The most basic task of the Church leader is to discern the spiritual gifts of all those under his authority, and to encourage those gifts to be used to the full for the benefit of all.  Only a person who can discern the gifts of others and can humbly rejoice at the flowering of those gifts is fit to lead the Church.”

   St. John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood

This quote, from a saint of the Church, begs the question; Why haven’t the bishops done the right thing about their own clergy sexually abusing parishioners?  Of course that also begs the question; Why don’t the bishops do the right thing about other kinds of clergy abuse?  The laypeople involved have gifts, have spiritual gifts, that the Church needs and the bishops are just letting those gifts languish and/or be destroyed by the lack of leadership that they have shown. 

With Monsignor William Lynn being convicted of one count of endangering a child and now awaiting sentencing maybe this is the slap in the face needed by the hierarchy to wake them up to reality.   How many spiritual gifts were destroyed by sexual abuse?  The lives of people mean something, district attorney’s Lynn Abraham and Seth Williams recognized that even if the Church’s hierarchy didn’t.