A Few Bad Shepherds - from an Op-ed from the Washtimes
When appointed last year, Mr. Keating said that, "The Church needs a thorough scrubbing." This was a call to clean up immorality, not to do away with moral standards, as some of the dissenters are trying to do. The response to hypocrisy cannot be relativism. The scandals have given many leftists a club with which to take whacks at an institution that stands against much that is bad in our culture. By their lack of contrition, many bishops have aided and abetted the revolutionaries in their pews. Mr. Keating's frustrated probe, and the politics behind it, signal more troubles for the Catholic Church in the future.
A friend of mine who is a priest has a saying, "It's going to get worse before it gets worse."
I fear your priest friend may be right. Power corrupts many, if not most people who obtain it, and the longer they have it, the more entrenched the powerful become. The saddest part is, they often reach the point where they are so out of touch with what is really going on that they invent their own reality and begin to honestly believe it. I have seen this first hand recently in my workplace, which is why I am now looking for a new job.
My prayers go out to the many priests and other subordinates whose very lives are at the mercy a few but powerful dinosaur bishops (and their sycophantic aides) who are mishandling this nightmare for the Lord's Church. My prayers also go out to the bishops who are allowing themselves to be guided by Christ (not politics) and are serious about ending this crisis once and for all. May God give those men the courage and strength to stand up for what is right, not just what is easy.
I wish Pope JPII would get on a jet, zip over here, and shake things up big time. He should clean house so we can put the worst of this behind us and truly begin to heal.
We should welcome this period of cleansing. I, too, believe that it will get much worse, but we'll be better off in the long run. I think of this as the ecclesial version of "Throw the bums out!"