UNITED STATES
The Manila Times
By Eric F. Mallonga
AMERICA’S Roman Catholic bishops have been rightly taking radical measures to protect American children from predator clergy. The bishops recently voted to bar abusive priests from Church work, to defrock them and prohibit them from further delivering homilies of morality to the laity. Some cardinals have expressed deep misgivings on the disciplinary plans that the US Conference on Catholic Bishops overwhelmingly agreed upon. They claim that the plan violates Catholic teaching on redemption: “That any sinner can be healed” and that all cases are equally treated no matter the severity. Chicago’s Francis Cardinal George correctly countered that penalties are necessarily “draconian” so as to restore trust in Church leadership: “Our real convictions come from the failure of oversight of priests by bishops in the past, and the concern of parents and the protection of their children.”
Certainly, when the Catholic Church takes on extraordinary responsibilities of setting spiritual and moral standards for observance by the laity, then extraordinary obligations and extraordinary standards must be established for clerics, who enforce those standards. It is indeed absurd that Catholic clerics condemn immoral and unchristian acts and practices, intimidating the laity with fire and brimstone homilies. Yet when they are criticized and condemned for their own immoral and unchristian acts, the clerics automatically demand Christian forgiveness even as there is a denial of the commission of their sinful predations on minors. None of the abusive clerics confess to sinful acts even as they abuse power in condemning lay Catholics who have condemned clerical misbehavior. There is an abuse of power and authority as Catholic clerics hold moral ascendancy over their followers when they embark on a condemnation of their critics without remorseful admission of their sinful behavior, in addition to the sexual abuse committed upon vulnerable children. Catholic priests are fast to condemn other people for their alleged immoral and sinful conduct yet do not wish to be held accountable on those same standards.