I have decided that I will not write about the horrendous abuse and even more horrendous coverup of Sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. There is nothing new in the very poor handling of this whole fiasco. We have seen this over and over again in too many dioceses. And besides that the guilty actors for the most part try desperately to diminish responsibility and the destruction left in the wake of the abuse.

Instead I would like to focus on something that many people forget or sadly don’t even know. God loves everything he has created, us, the angels, the fallen angels/demons…everything. Since the meaning of the word love has morphed into something it is not, lets define it in the context of God’s love.

Yes, God loves the demons. Does that mean he forgives them? Does that mean he supports the sin that got them remove from heaven? No it doesn’t. Look at where God acted in the world with vengeance because people did not listen to him. Examples include Adam and Eve being banished from Eden, the great flood, smiting the first born of the Egyptians, Destroying their army. the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra, The list goes on and on. Even if some people define them as allegories it does not make the vengeance of God any less real. Vengeance is mine says the Lord.

Extrapolate this. God loves the abusers and the people who covered it up. (Truth be told the cover up and Church inaction was worse for me than the abuse itself.)

We also need to cling to the knowledge that God will forgive anything that we bring to him to forgive that we are sorry for doing or not doing. It is an error to say to ourselves that, “God can’t forgive that.”, when we are thinking about our lives. The only thing God will not forgive are the things we don’t confess and bring to him. The mercy is there we just have to take advantage of it.

That being said God will even forgives abusers if they come before him in humility and sorrow and ask for forgiveness. That is also true of those who lied and deflected blame in order to cover up the horrific events of sexual abuse. (That is harder for me to sallow but I’m working on it.) Like I said it was/is the cover up that caused me more harm than the molestation itself.

If the actors involved do not confess their sins then their souls will be lost forever. None of us should want that. We should never want anyone to spend eternity without God. Yet that is a choice that is made by some people. That is why we need to remember that love does not mean acceptance or endorsement of sin. We should never endorse sin. Yes God loves us and takes us where we are but he doesn’t want us to stay there. Sin is anathema to God and since we are all sinners we need to take advantage of the mercy offered to us. Being obstinate in our sin seals our fate. We also need to pray for ourselves, for our friends and family and for our enemies.

The bottom lines are; God will forgive us if we ask for forgiveness, we are loved by God, God is merciful and at the same time just so obstinance in sin will not end well for us. Pray, pray and pray some more. Ask God to show us what we need to confess so we gain heaven and eternity with him.