Papal Tears Over Abuses O.K. but Reforming Seminaries as induction Centers for Lavenders is More Important. More.

By Tom Roeser

Tears and Sympathy.
Pope Benedict as a pristine scholar and theologian has his work cut out for him—and it has nothing to do with theology…but tightening up on administration. News the other day that he had tears in his eyes when meeting with families of those abused by pedophile priests was stirring: but turning “reform” over to the same-old, same-old Italianate curia with comme-si, comme-sa, approach to change is going to stir cynicism and will, frankly, wreck his papacy which has an enormous possibility for good in the world.
Does it take a long time to crack down on the insouciant seminary rectors? You bet. It’s like fumigating a nest of roaches from a house. But just to test, there’s one thing that can happen with the snap of a finger—that is making a decision on L’Osservatore Romano the sometimes official, sometimes not official publication that causes great consternation over why the Pontiff of 2 billion churchgoers can’t straighten out the publication which misleads Catholics daily.
He should decide that either the publication is in fact the official publication of the Church whereby he fires the editor and puts somebody charge who will see that the newspaper reflects the straight words from the papacy…or that it is not and severs unofficial connection with it. There—that shouldn’t be too hard, should it? If the pope does that, he will convince people that as an administrator he means business. If he doesn’t, well we’ll just have to wait for a successor to do a job which should be remarkably easy.
Tears of contrition are fine but insufficient if they are just a one-day news story and the seminaries go on welcoming lavenders as incipient priests—for while it’s highly politically incorrect—even politically dangerous-- to say it, they are the root cause of the problem.
http://blog.tomroeser.com/2010/04/thoughts-while-shaving-papal-tears-over.html