Openly Gay Bishop Gene Robinson Has Some Lessons for Pope Benedict XVI | Gay Rights

The subject of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal is a pretty thorny issue. (Religious pun intended.) Witness the conflicted polls about how American Catholics view the Church's response to what's become a truly global epidemic of abuse, stretching from Chile to Brazil to the U.S. to Spain to Germany and to the halls of the Vatican. Most Catholics in the pews are unhappy with how the Vatican has handled the situation, while withholding judgment on their own local priests and bishops.

Perhaps that's not altogether surprising, given the Vatican's massive public relations FAIL when it comes to handling the sex abuse scandal. First they blamed the gays. Then they suggested that Catholic priests were being persecuted much like Jewish people were under the Nazi regime in Germany. Then they went back to blaming the gays. Then they started to blame the New York Times. And then they went back to blaming the gays.

That's an awful lot of blame, without an awful lot of apologizing to parishioners who were victims of priestly abuse.

And therein lies some sage advice given (unsolicited) to Pope Benedict XVI by openly gay Episcopalian Bishop V. Gene Robinson. Bishop Robinson, writing in the Washington Post, drew on some lessons that his own denomination learned the hard way, after a clergy sex abuse scandal threatened to consume the Episcopal Church. Here's the Cliff's Notes version, in three easy steps:

Step One: Say you're sorry. Period.

Step Two: Institute a bunch of reforms that focus on transparency.

Step Three: Stop scapegoating gay people, particularly priests, when they have nothing to do with the sex abuse scandal.

via gayrights.change.org

One of my biggest beefs with the Catholic Church is it's continued refusal to own up to its responsibility for allowing the decades of abuse to continue and thus trying to scapegoat its way out of the morass. It makes me wonder, with all this energy spent trying to wash its hands of blame, pointing fingers, and painting itself as being persecuted unfairly, is it actually doing anything to prevent such abuses from happening now and in the future?

(My other beef is the fact that the Church valued its reputation over any sense of justice or morality-how does that square with an institution that is supposed to be a spiritual authority?)

Posted via web from Firesaw