This is from Tuesday’s office of readings; “From the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world of the Second Vatican Council”.  It says “Indeed, it is the duty of all God’s people, with bishops giving the lead by word and example, to do all in their power to relieve the suffering of our times,…” Okay, I get that it is about physical poverty but what about spiritual poverty?  Have the bishops been lax in relieving suffering? In fact haven’t they aided and abided evil sometimes even causing suffering? Young people, seminarians and others, when there is a very large power differential, have been made to suffer even by bishops. Instead of relieving suffering the bishops caused it.  The same can be said for all of the bishops who cooperated with the evil of clergy abuse.  You know the cry from them is, ‘we didn’t know, we were told they could be cured.’  But what happened to non-clergy who abused, were they moved around, were they disciplined or were they fired?

This is from the same reading: “This scandal must be removed from among men, for the glory of Christ’s Church and its testimony to the world are the spirit of poverty and the spirit of love.”  Once again I understand that this was written about the physical poverty in the world but it really does apply to the current sex scandal both the fact that it happened and should never have and the way victims and their families have been treated by the men in the Church. Christ’s love in the handling of this scandal has been sorely lacking.

There are a plethora of people in the Church, laity, bemoaning hearing about this scandal again and they cannot connect this sin with themselves. The sin does effect all of us. The people who are griping today had parent’s and grandparent’s who sacrificed mightily to build these edifices that could very possibly be taken by the government.

I might have a different attitude regarding clergy abuse if I hadn’t been abused. If the federal investigations into the Church sex scandal in the USA rise to the level of RICO violations the Church in the USA could loose its tax exempt status and could also have all of its assets seized.  I say good, you reap what you sew. Of course this will effect me in ways unseen and it could be very unpleasant.  So be it.  (I can say that now because it’s only in theory.  Actuality may be different.)  All of this will probably get worse.  Remember that the bad stuff is not from God. We need to cling to God.