In every newspaper that one picks up around the world, there have lately been numerous articles on the Catholic Church's sexual sins. That institution is reeling from the scandal surrounding sexual abuse and reprehensible behavior by its priests, but last week the San Francisco Catholic Archdiocese stated that the Catholic Church is not the only church with sexual sins and asked that the Catholic Church not be religiously profiled. The Bishop of that diocese said that while Catholic priests have been involved in sexual abuse, other churches and religions are not without sin of this nature, as well. His call is for all religions and authorities examining the Catholic Church to equally examined others for these crimes.  

This bold statement is clearly an attempt to distract public focus from the image of Catholic priests as hideous pedophiles. But while this diversionary technique is ancient and readily perceived, his call does elevate an interesting issue that needs examining: "They have done it too!" Presently, all eyes are focused on Catholic priests as child molesters, wife rapists, and sexual perverts. And anyone who commits these acts should be identified and punished, especially if he or she is someone held to a higher standard of morality, as men/women of the cloth are held.

When men and women of supposed higher standards administer their offices in the name of God, yet are found to be not only deficient in morals, but actually to be engaging in the most corrupt forms of sin and crimes, their corruption is usually indicative of society's overall moral decay. It is almost an axiom that moral impurity in the pulpit usually eventuates into moral decay in the public. Jesus characterized the church and its members as the salt of the earth. If that salt cannot bring out the flavor, Jesus asks, what good is it?

When the most holy demonstrate that they are the most perverted, we must see it as it is; we cannot hide our faces in the sand and just let it pass, nor can we offer justifications and rationalizations for their sins. And certainly, we cannot provide a harboring place from their ill winds. That is what apparently has happened for years. But when we only hope sin and crime away, when we only pray it away and not become the arms of God to help rid the church and society of sickness, we become parties to the offense. And then the shame of some becomes the shame and disgrace of all.

What has happened to the moral invocation to do good/well unto all men, especially the household of faith? The long tenure of these repugnant offenses that were not addressed by the Catholic Church shows that the church has not obeyed its own teachings, while attempting to preach to others to obey God.  

The crime of sexual perversion, or which pedophilia is a form, moves beyond sin. For ordinary sin, the members of a church should invoke the biblical sanctions allowed. But when sin has made its way into the annals of crime, that is a social harm and the law should invoke and exact the punishment that it has established to safeguard society. Neither the church nor its members should offer sanctuary for offending priests or ministers, and that is, indeed, in keeping with the teaching of the church. The apostle Paul wrote that rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil. He argues that the person who does social evil [molesting children is evil], for such a one, the law of that society should exact its toll. But when the church harbors and shelters evil social offenders, that church becomes an offender and transgresses its own teaching. 

Sexual abuse is a crime that is physical and psychological, and it is perversion of the worst type. It is also a breach of our societal bond/contract with our children. There is a social contract that we have made with our children to protect them because they are weak, to love them and nurture them unharmed and soundly into adulthood. Every sensible society has this contract with its children. 

But the pedophilic acts of a minister/priest trying to quiet his smoldering lust for strange flesh, crushes a little child's spirit and enthusiasm for life. They create within that child a sore of the soul; a sore that will reside within that child for years to come. And if that sore goes untreated, it is likely to unleash still more horror upon other innocent and unsuspecting children, as often the untreated and formerly molested, as an adult, retraces the steps of his own abuse to mimic his abuser. 

While the Archdiocese's words against religious profiling of the Catholic Church were meant to throw attention away from it, that is readily perceived, but we also know that there is a need to look at other churches concerning this problem too. 

For six years, I worked as the head of a Juvenile Court in a large California County court system. I saw the high and low come through the court doors for some of the most outrageous acts and behaviors imaginable: yes, pastors have shot their sons over women; pastors have come into court over unlawful sexual practices; pastors have been placed in prison for rape and statutory rape; pastors have been charged with unlawful sexual behavior with men and boys of their congregations; churches have taken other churches to courts over money and greed! I have seen more dastardly deeds than I care to see from church people and ministers who wear a cloak of righteousness to hide a body of sin. 

It is true, sinner ministers sin in the some of the same ways other sinners sin, only they wear coats of righteousness and point fingers elsewhere in the name of the Lord when their sins are made known. But it is time to root this behavior out of the church. It is pitiful that the state has to protect parishioners from predatory ministers. And it is true that when this contorted reversal of situations occurs, judgment has begun at the house of God. 

For the last month, Gibbs Magazine has been focusing on the financial rape of church members by ministers in some Black churches, but there are sexual sins among them as well. Those sexual sins may have escalated into sexual crimes, as the Archdiocese of San Francisco's Catholic Church is suggesting by their statement last week. 

Concerning the sexual scandal within all churches, the logical question about these matters has already been asked, but it needs to be asked over and over again: How did the leadership become so corrupt that they could use tender children of their flocks as sexual play-things and feel no shame?

News media throughout this nation and the world betoken that this problem of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is not localized--it is widespread throughout this nation and the world. Thousands of children and adults have been raped, sodomized, and molested by priests from the porch to the altar. And it has been done repeatedly over many years.

In San Francisco, the District Attorney is calling upon the church to give him access to records of priests going back as many as 75 years; In Los Angeles, the Catholic Church Archdiocese is saying it will work with authorities in purging itself of sick and wrongdoing priests; In Ireland the Church is paying hundreds of millions of dollars for the sexual offenses of many priests who have been abusing many children over many years; in Boston and other cities throughout America, the Catholic Church is paying millions of dollars in lawyers' fees, settlements, hush money, and lawsuit judgments against them. And still, some are saying that we are only seeing the tip of this iceberg. 

The San Francisco Archdiocese has suggested that there are problems elsewhere, in other churches. Does that diocese know something that we do not know about an organized and planned system of child sexual abuse that can be viewed as organized crime? This is an interesting concept that may challenge the legal and political notion of separation of church and state if the state looks into the claim that the San Francisco Archdiocese is making. And if they look into that claim, they may unearth many other problems--financial impropriety also.

The errors of these present church ministers are historical errors. Whenever we fail to pay attention to our history, we tend to walk in the same flawed steps of others. Historically, Eli's sons were ministers of the house of God, and they committed analogous sins within the temple, behind the altar, much as one female is claiming a priest did to her. Saul, the king the people wanted so desperately, took those people and made merchandise and slaves out of them for his own desires. These acts have occurred before and should have been known by the parishioners of the church if the ministers were teaching the truth. 

When a people allow themselves to trust leadership without reservation and without transparency of stewardship in the office served, that leadership will go from sin to sin and from crime to crime because it can, having no one to check it. Such unaccountable stewardship is absolute power, and we all know the adage of such power. Eventually, however, corrupt leadership reeks from its own fraudulence, grieving the heart of God as well as the community. And the sword will come in some way-either by God's own sword bearers who are free of such behavior or by other means. That is where the church is now, and that too is historically augured.

Although the SF Archdiocese is using diversionary tactics to direct attention elsewhere, judgment is upon it. Only the naive will be diverted from a rightful focus on the Catholic Church. It is time for the church to heal itself instead of denying sin and pointing elsewhere.

There is a line in an old Negro Spiritual that is apropos to this situation:
“It’s me, it’s me, ol’Lord, standing in the need of prayer. Not my brotha or my sista, but it’s me, ol’Lord, standing in the need of prayer.” []

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