I’m going to try again to write on a regular basis again. And that is all I will say about that. No excuses why I haven’t or why I want to start again. Just going to. This is just one of those things I need to start doing again.

Yesterday’s Gospel reading was Luke 6:29 -42, the one where Jesus talks about falling into pits and putting logs in your eyes.

“first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.”

The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version; Second Catholic Edition. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), Lk 6:42.

In other, less painful, terms we need to make sure we ourselves are without faults before we pick out the faults of others. We all do it, I try not to but I do. We are so quick to condemn others but don’t follow our own example. Especially as Catholics, we have so many “rules” to follow it is nothing for us to say “You need to go to Mass every week” but we haven’t been in weeks, months, or even years.

“Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?

The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version; Second Catholic Edition. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), Lk 6:39.

How can we teach others and expect them to follow if we don’t follow the rules ourselves? For the past few years, I have considered myself to be a devout Catholic. In reality, I am not, I am a good Catholic, but not a devout one. I’m not sure I will ever be one. I believe in the teachings of the Catholic Church, I may not agree with them, but I understand why they are what they are and I do my absolute best to follow them, but it isn’t easy.

Why isn’t it easy? It has nothing to do with being a sinner. It isn’t because I enjoy being a sinner (and we all must admit that some sins can sure make us feel good). It is because it has always been hard for me to condone the Catholic Church’s actions regarding pedophile priests. They covered it up for decades allowing lives to be ruined.

No, I am not a victim, I don’t know any victims, nor do I know of any priests who were or are pedophiles. Priests are humans, they have failures just like all of us and they can succumb to temptations just like us. But they chose a vocation and made vows fully knowing what they were getting into. Still, I can’t blame the priests entirely. I believe that in the end they will be judged by God and He will deal with them accordingly.

But I can and do blame the Catholic Church and the hierarchy for not dealing with it as soon as it happened. Moving pedophile priests to other parishes to hide the problem did nothing but make the situation worse. All it did was move a priest from one hunting ground to a new one. And for that, I hold the church responsible.

How many children were harmed by this? I just recently read a book about one such priest who was actually in a parish not far from where I am. It focuses mainly on one well-known family who had several sons who were abused. Eventually one of the sons, the oldest, committed suicide. I believe this boy was in the first parish this priest served at. When the problem was reported the priest was moved to another parish. This went on for fifty years.

Had the bishop dealt with the problem when it first happened, how many children would have been spared the pain and suffering of having been abused? Not only abused but abused by a priest who is supposed to be someone they could trust and who was supposed to protect them. When I was a young lad instead of an old coot, I was taught that a priest was second only to God. God wouldn’t hurt us, so why should a priest be allowed to?

I don’t have the answers to this. I only know that those responsible for covering up these crimes will also be called before God and asked why. And then they too will be judged according to their actions.

As always, you can comment, share, like, and all that stuff. Remember God is watching, even those who think they are Him.