Pope's, Bishops and Drive-By Apologies

One would think that when a Pope visits one of the faith's marque countries which has recently fallen off the wagon it would merit some special attention. But, the Pope's visit to Ireland a few months ago was quite brief. He hustled through the parades, listening sessions with abuse victims and visits with public office holders. Then back to Rome. As Fenten O'Tool of the Irish Times put it, he left more of a mysterious man than before he came.

Then recently, the U.S. Bishops held a conference where they wanted to address to problem of sexual abuse and implement reforms. Under consideration was lay member oversight and other measures. It was hoped the church would regain respect in the U. S. and there would be no more hiding of abusers by moving them from place to place. The Pope ruled Bishops could not offer solutions to the problem.

Coming up is a world-wide confab of high ranking clergy from across the world. There has been speculation the Pope wants to introduce a world wide reform rather than have each country establish its own rules. This is contrary to speculation that different rules for different countries is what the Pope wants.

If the Pope and church at large want to regain the confidence of the public it needs to go further than meetings with the abused, routine apologies and big payouts from the church's bottomless stash. There needs to be something like allowing priests to marry and a reversal of the priests as agents of Jesus.