At seminary a professor, married, puts the move on students. Later is elected bishop
In parish, married priest conducts several affairs with parishioners. When bishop is told, after priest moves to another diocese, he does nothing.
This was before we had things like priests leaving their fruitful marriages for their homosexual activities and being made causes celebres and elected bishop.
Near here, a Baptist preacher has an alcoholic family with children staying at home and promiscuous. One child is jailed after DUI incident that resulted in death and maiming. Minister is booted from one congregation — and starts another, which thrives.The “authorities” (the lay people) didn't cover up. They approved!
In the congregation in which I grew up, the Confirmation class teacher for many years was a notorious drunk and couldn't keep his hands off the adolescent girls. My mother, and others, laughed at it. He taught the class for years.
I AM the witness. I don't HAVE them. I know it's a small sample, but it's geographically diverse.
The apparent systematic and secretive nature of the whole thing, across continents with your church, is what creates so much alarm, Mad Dawg. I, myself, have some degree of sympathy with the way your church has been targeted, I recall quite clearly the disgusting and blasphemous attacks by ACT UP!, slinging condoms and chanting filth after breaking in during mass. I’ve long felt that your seminaries were deliberately infiltrated.
I also think nearly every large Protestant denomination has been targeted and infiltrated. But, we separate ourselves from these just as we separated ourselves from Catholicism oh so many centuries ago. We join another congregation, oftentimes another denomination and perhaps even none at all, and feel no loss other than perhaps historical or family associations. The Church to us is the body of believers, and where ever we’re gathered in His name is the Church. You don’t do this, other than perhaps seeking out a more conservative parish. That’s just the way it is.
What anger I have comes from the rationalizations and excuses that otherwise well-meaning Catholics put forth, in a misguided belief that they are protecting their church. Wrong is wrong, remove it from among yourselves. I know this, you know this. Every Christian does, or should. That’s why it keeps getting dredged back up. I hope for your sake and mine, that your church deals with the problem thoroughly and effectively. It’s doing untold harm to efforts of longstanding to bring souls to salvation.
I’ll say the same for the Episcopal Church, with allowing open homosexuals into the pulpit, as well as any other Protestant denomination permitting or considering anything similar. No good will come of it from a Christian perspective, and anyone who is even a casual student of the Bible knows this. Minister to them, certainly. They’re children of God and are sinners, as we all are sinners. Declaring your sin a lifestyle or an identity and then proceeding to deny that it’s sin at all, is not Christian at all, though, and never will be, no matter how long or how loudly they bellow about it.