NY Lawsuit: Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse

I am an Independent Charismatic Protestant (aka, Pentecostal), have been most of my life. Please get this in your mind before you send me a nasty-gram that I am defending the Catholic Church.

Although I find some of the doctrines of the Catholic Church strange and unable to be supported by scripture, I do not bash the church overall. Lots of good has and continues to come from it and I cannot take from that. Like any organization man has created it has flaws. I believe the church (Catholic and Protestant) are God ordained but man has in both cases gotten his leaven into it. Please get this in your mind before you send me a nasty-gram that I am bashing the Catholic Church or that I am a “Catholic Church hater”.

I have been called by God as a watchman – I function in that role and in that role I am like the umpire at a baseball game. I try to see each pitch and play OBJECTIVELY and FAIRLY call them. And like the umpire, by the end of the game both sides hate me if I have done my job well. Check out the book of Habakkuk – it’s short enough to see the message. He was called by God as a watchman.

Within the church (Protestant, Catholic, etc.) there are several tendencies when things go wrong. We have seen them in the scandals involving groups as diverse as the Catholic Church, Ted Haggard, The Mormon Church and some local bodies I could cite but they would not be meaningful to anyone here. These tendencies are present in lodges, business and government as well. When someone messes up there is the desire to “keep it inside”, “don’t let someone blow it out of proportion”, “do damage control” if it gets outside, then if it blows up, try to spin it as “not so bad”, “everyone does it”, or worse misuse scripture to say, “we are to forgive”.

Yes we are to forgive but forgiveness does not mean that we give a pass to those who err to CONTINUE their deeds or escape valid punishment for their past either in the church or in the legal system.

When e forgive e need to make sure we are not enabling the person to continue the sin. Keeping it inside is hiding sin which is not biblical. Doing damage control or spinning the story is really lying. It is like calling cold, dead, raw fish sushi. It is still cold, dead, raw fish. The thought that everyone does it has two flaws. First, not everyone does it. Second, even if they did, is it right? The latter is God’s yardstick, not mine. So none of these matter.

If the church prevents the legal system from doing it’s job, the church is culpable and has erred just the same as has the errant one. Jesus said “Render to Caesar.” The Apostle Paul in Romans said: