In this Season of Hope the Church Continues to Ignore Evil

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/opinion/07mon2.html?ref=opinion

As a practicing Roman Catholic the recent priest sexual abuse scandal is a great evil and pain to all of us. Retired New York Cardinal Egan was forced to publish his personal notes from the many priest abuse cases when he was Archbishop of Hartford. The fact that almost every Bishop in the world covered up for serial abusers over decades shows a Church that acted more like Carlos Escobar's Medellin cartel than the City of God.

I worked within the Church as both a lay volunteer after college and I also considered entering religious life. Many of my dear friends are sisters and priests but the weird sexual vibe found in many religious houses makes for an odd mix of misogny and homoeroticism that I chose not to enter into as a younger man.

Today rather than facing the unhealthy sexual vibe of the Church the Bishops are instead moving to the Right. Rather than addressing the evil that their mindset created they are assuring everyone that the real problem is feminist Sisters, women priest advocates and those who believe that the poor are a priority.

In the end you reap what you sew but in this time of rebirth and incarnation it is time that the Roman Catholic Church realizes that its sexual mentality caused the sexual abuse of minors but that would mean questioning the closed system that is more about power than about God.