1. The language, which presumably was labored over by people with Catholic educations, is more stilted than that of teen-aged confessors to "impure thoughts." Everyone knows there aren't standards, just a standard, and that it forbids everything that falls under the heading, "sexual conduct." You'd think these clods could do better.
2. But they had been doing even worse before today. O'Brien at first denied the allegations against him and indicated, through spokesmen, that he was considering legal remedies against the newspaper that reported them. A few days later he admits it's all true. These guys can carry around staffs and dress up in funny clothes and hats but one recognizes a pattern that applies to those who don't claim any special expertise in the field of morals. Deny, deny, deny. Then, if it turns out that they've got the goods on you, issue a "frank" apology to those who "may be offended."
3. The Church's high officials are unable to see what this all looks like to people who aren't blinded by their devotion to a bureaucracy that has had the great good sense to promote them into its upper echelons. It's not that there are some bad peaches. The orchard's soil is rotten. The only people who don't understand this have read Augustine's Confessions in the original Latin.
4. The celibacy requirement for priests should be abolished. In theory, it's a sacrifice, but in practice it has the effect of screening out healthy people. The priesthood has become a hideaway for cripples whose sexual predilictions have to be secret in any case. This is another thing understood by virtually eveyone who hasn't studied Catholic theology.
5. O'Brien himself seems to have understood. Just a couple of days before the allegations surfaced in news reports, he said in a BBC interview that priests should be able to be husbands and fathers. He had a reputation for "liberal" views and was therefore required to swear an oath of fealty to Catholic orthodoxy before becoming a cardinal in 2003. He then appears to have toed the line in public while continuing in private his double life. It's evident he wanted to be a cardinal. But what does he think about his Church's teachings?
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