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	Is It Time for a Second Reformation? The Catholica April 8, 2011 http://www.catholica.com.au/gc2/occ2/065_occ2_080411.php The world knows that people across the Middle East are rebelling against the corrupt, repressive rule of autocratic and monarchic leaders, forcing some out of office and threatening many others. It is a turning point in history. So the question arises, will this uprising inspire Roman Catholics, finally, to challenge the arbitrary rule of the worlds oldest monarchy, their church? This 2,000-year-old, all-male hierarchy, claiming a self-perpetuating divine sanction, is accountable only to itself and answers to only one man, the pope, while demanding obedience from its one-billion members and repressing all dissent. Worst of all, in recent decades this leadership of bishops and popes has tolerated and covered up the most massive scandal in its history, the sexual abuse by its priests of many thousands of children and young people. This horrendous church corruption shown most recently in Philadelphia USA — rivals the abuses that led to the Great Reformation. That's why it seems entirely appropriate for Catholic reform organizations to unite in a demand for a second reformation, or an epic transformation, as reform intellectual Richard Sipe puts it. Author and psychologist Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea, writing in the National Catholic Reporter [LINK], asks where Catholics will find their own Tahrir Square, where in Egypt the people staged their powerful and successful protests. When will it be filled with righteous indignation and sacred insistence that "Enough is Enough", she said. Frawley-ODea earned the right to ask that question in her work with sexual-abuse survivors for 25 years, dealing with rape, oral sex and other gross molestation of children by the men of God. A coalition to bring about this Catholic reformation would obviously require some careful planning. Catholic reformers could form an executive committee to do that planning, make a major announcement when their plans were firmed up (it should generate worldwide media attention), and take specific steps to show their serious commitment. These planned actions could include proposing the withholding of monetary contributions for a designated time. It also could include calling for another Vatican Council to consider reforms, with equal membership of laywomen and men. This council could deal with such compelling issues as celibacy, accountability, ordination of women and church democracy, all issues that reformers have been addressing in uncoordinated efforts that so far have been largely ineffective. Certainly there are compelling reasons to demand church reform. Millions of people, especially the young, are leaving the Catholic Church over its past failure to deal with the moral corruption, as well as its continuing failure to address their spiritual, intellectual and, yes, secular needs in this modern time. Many are leaving rather than bothering to confront an increasingly irrelevant church leadership. Acting together the reform organizations might be able to stop the hemorrhage and bring back many of the disaffected believers. Reform-minded priests and religious sisters probably would be eager to respond to this campaign, which could use social media to spread the word, as the Middle Eastern revolutionaries have done. These courageous rebels have shown it is possible to bring about change in the face of seemingly impossible odds. Thus the question is whether Catholic reformers and believers will follow their example in seeking to force change in a church that has maintained its arbitrary power for so long.
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