Is It Safe to Pray?

Is it Safe to Pray?

No matter what religion a person practices, everybody has gone to church whether it is on a regular basis or for an occasion such as a wedding or funeral. When you look up at the altar and see the priest, you don't question their morality because society is taught not to question a higher authority figure. Why would such a symbol of purity and sanctity have anything shameful to hide? All of the sudden the man at the altar has lawsuits being filed against him. Child molestation is presenting itself as an issue that is becoming recurrent in society and more of an epidemic within the Catholic Church. In the past, the priests involved in these incidents have not been subjected to a punishment equal to the crime they committed. A priest involved in such deplorable activities should immediately be defrocked and subjected to criminal prosecution.

This is a problem that lends itself to secrecy. The priests who commit these immoral acts are masters at using justifications, denial, and within an environment of religion, to look for a higher power for forgiveness which allows the abusive priest in his own mind to excuse the behavior. The failure of some bishops of the Church and the Church itself to respond effectively in the manner consistent with their positions as leaders with a duty to protect to most vulnerable members of the Church, is in some ways more disturbing than the criminal acts of the priests themselves. These same bishops may have confused forgiveness with leniency towards criminal behavior. In some cases, the bishops and other church leaders placed their thoughts and emotions with the accused priests over those of the victims, by accepting the denials from the priests instead of listening to the victims.

Numerous cases are adding up into the millions and the churches are filing bankruptcy. But ultimately where does the fault lie? What actions should be taken to see that justice is served and have the Catholic Church remain solvent? If a priest is found to have committed acts of sexual misconduct with minors, he should not be shuttled from one position in the church to another but should in fact be defrocked and removed completely from the Catholic Church and deprived of any services provided by the Church. In this manner, it is possible to remove the temptation from the priest and safeguard the wellbeing of the Church family.

Due to the allegations lately, one has to question the stability of the Church. How can it hold up with this much pressure on it from the legal and public standpoints? According to the Washington Post Foreign Service, a leaked draft from the Vatican stated, ". . . 4,450 priests have been accused of molesting more than 11,000 children." Now what kind of example are these clergy setting? Parishioners go to their clergy for guidance and support but instead they are taking advantage of your children's innocence resulting in heaps of money spent on counseling and psychiatric evaluations. But as any emotionally injured family would do, you sue for $2,000,000 and receive every penny, sending your beloved faith straight to bankruptcy court. All of the Church's problems could have been easily avoided had the archdiocese legislated that the interaction between the clergy and the minors be limited solely to religious functions. But now over 11,000 children have to go through the pain and ordeal which could have been prevented through better preparation in the seminary.

The increase in sexual misconduct among catholic priests in large part due to the ineffective screening and psychological evaluations of candidates for the clergy by the religious order. According to the Desert News (Salt Lake City, UT) in a study conducted by the National Review Board (a committee of lay people), the blame for this sexual abuse crisis is not necessarily the presence of homosexual individuals within the clergy as there are many homosexual priests who remain faithful to their celibacy. The same study did infer that a "gay subculture" exists in some churches.

In 1 Timothy 6:10, "For the love of money is the root of all evil." The thought of money can drive a person to irrational thinking and past what the situation actually calls for, justice to be served. For many years the Catholic Church has attempted to down-play the overall problem. Their solution for many years was to keep the incident quite by throwing vast sums of many at the problem rather than addressing the cause of the problem. According to the analysis