What Happens When Bishops Are Politicians First and Pastors Second

Rex Harrison as Pope Julius II, "the Warrior Pope," and Charlton Heston as Michelangelo in The Agony and Ecstasy.

My observation is that the current scandal has been aggravated by Bishops making decisions as politicians rather than pastors. "Let's quietly move him somewhere else so that it doesn't look bad." Well, how does it look now?

This is why, in retrospect, it probably was a good thing for the Popes to loose control of the Papal States. Christ said "My Kingdom is not of this world." The Popes could not really take the moral high ground while they were busy being secular rulers.

We must always remember that Saint Peter, the first pope, denied Christ three times and most of the other Apostles ran away in fright from the crucifixion. Why should we expect anything better from their successors. The Church will survive this crisis as it has survived all the others. The shame is that our pastors have brought the shame down upon the Church themselves. Here's a good article by John Zmirak at Inside Catholic.