How should the Church respond to cases of child abuse? Are child abusers less deserving of God's mercy and our mercy than liars and adulterers? I know that there is much more emotion and actual righteous anger directed at these priests and others like them in our world, but are they worse they we are? Here is the Pope's recent statement, very similar to Jesus' statement.
Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday urged
Catholics to refrain from judging sinners a day after he rebuked Irish
bishops for their handling of a half-century of sexual abuse of minors
by clergy.
While
the pope made no mention of the Vatican's widely criticized policy of
cloaking abuse allegations in secrecy, a Swiss churchman called for the
Holy See to start a registry of molester clergy to avoid more shuttling
by bishops of pedophile priests from parish to parish.
The pontiff didn't
mention his letter chastising Ireland's church hierarchy as he made his
weekly appearance Sunday from his studio window overlooking St. Peter's
Square. He cited the Gospel passage about Jesus' inviting those without
sin to cast the first stone toward an adulterer.
via www.msnbc.msn.com
This issue of not casting the first stone raises some very practical issues. Can we cast stones if we are the second person? or the third?
How do we then deal with child molesters? How do we show mercy? What does does forgiveness look like? How do we protect our children and not cast stones? Is protection of our children more important than tangible forgiveness?
Here's another stream of questions..should the priesthood be a job that one can easily get fired from? Or should it continued to be viewed as a vocation and calling no matter how unworthy the priests are? Of course priests that have been found guilty of molestation ought not run the children's program. Is pedophilia beyond God's ability to forgive? to heal?
As a parent of three children and as someone who believes that the extreme grace of God ought to flow through our lives, this is a very challenging issue for me.
I am very interested in your thoughts. Please comment.
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