Penance. (Learn it, love it, live it.)

There comes a time when one must renounce evil. It is a key part of the prayers surrounding Roman Catholic baptisms. There is also a point where one is instructed to go and sin no more. This is one of the commands of the reconciliation sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church. These are points of faith which are non-negotiable for believers.

These are also points which should be non-negotiable for the Church, as well. In the case of the sexual abuse of children, there is no excuse. In the case of covering up clerical abusers, none can hide their face from an almighty and omnipotent God. When the Pope himself is complicit in the stonewalling authorities protecting the interests of abused children, the presumption of infallibility comes to a crashing halt.

This is not a point of indicting the Roman Catholic Church. This is a point of suggesting that the Church live up to the same standards it expects from its faithful. The Vatican is culpable in these abuse cases; they are also fundamentally responsible for reconciling with the wronged, the faithful, and God.

The fashionable thing among some circles of progressives is to belittle people of faith. That is tragic. Throughout history, great progressive change has come from places where the faithful and non-believers alike put aside their differences to achieve a common goal. Over the last thirty years, Conservatives have monopolized the positions of the publicly faithful.

Likewise, a conservative mindset of unaccountable behavior has pervaded the Catholic Church in America. The Church has lost the new connection it developed with the faithful it found after the Vatican Council of 1963. The daring outreach to welcome all into modern Catholicism seen under the early papacy of John Paul II has devolved into something resembling the church's medieval incarnation.

This is not a point where the Church holds the same kind of absolute power it held in 1020. If Roman Catholicism is going to survive, then the Vatican is in deep need of change. That can only come from the papacy itself.

The vow of celibacy is something which lives honestly within the vast majority of the Roman Catholic Clergy. But it is not something which is going to perpetuate the Catholic church. The pool of candidates for the priesthood begins limited.

When the candidate pool starts with the condition of foregoing a normal sexual relationship with a woman, it compounds the sins of those who get their pleasure from a position of power over their victims. Whatever the sins of Ted Haggard and Jimmy Swaggart were, they were committed with adults, people who were capable of choosing right and wrong. These were not acts of choice for the children and adolescents involved.

The huge majority of priests who fulfill their commitment to their vows are now obligated to carry the cross upon which the sins of a small number of clergymen will not be hung. It is wrong to protect and hide the sins of a few and ruin the reputation of the honorable. It is foul, and evil, and spectacularly un-Christlike.

A time will come when Rome will be forced to ask forgiveness of those who have been wronged. As John Paul II reached out to the other sects of Christendom, and took steps to reconcile with Judaism, a Pope may find a way to reconcile with the flock he has been called to shepherd.

It will not be an act of faith or goodwill coming from this Pope to atone for the evil committed in the name of the faith he heads. Atonement does not come from tacit support of those who violated children, nor the arrogant posturing which compares an outcry against the same evil to the greatest horrors against humanity. It just is not that kind of atmosphere.

Thankfully, there are places for those who love the Catholic liturgy, and retain their faith in Jesus Christ. It is a sign that a connection with God need not come at a cost of children's suffering to protect those who hurt them.

That is an objective which is worthy of the Saviour served.