I'm Not Confessing Your Sins

... and you shouldn't have to do penance for mine.

A theme among Catholic priests on Twitter is how they're working to atone for the sins of their orders. I want to grab them by the lapels and shake them. I don't want them beating themselves up over sins they didn't commit, I want them taking pigs like Cardinal Wuerrl out into the alley behind the church and beating the tar out of them. We need warriors, not wimps.

Bishop Morlino of the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin nails it in this letter to the faithful.

Faced with stories of the depravity of sinners within the Church, I have been tempted to despair. And why? The reality of sin – even sin in the Church – is nothing new. We are a Church made of sinners, but we are sinners called to sanctity. So what is new? What is new is the seeming acceptance of sin by some in the Church, and the apparent efforts to cover over sin by them and others. Unless and until we take seriously our call to sanctity, we, as an institution and as individuals, will continue to suffer the “wages of sin.”

For too long we have diminished the reality of sin – we have refused to call a sin a sin – and we have excused sin in the name of a mistaken notion of mercy. In our efforts to be open to the world we have become all too willing to abandon the Way, the Truth, and the Life. In order to avoid causing offense we offer to ourselves and to others niceties and human consolation.

Amen, Bishop.  "(W)e have excused sin in the name of a mistaken notion of mercy" is exactly right.

See also: postmodernism, denying objective morality via.

So get over it, guys. Show some anger. As long as the sermons about this horror are muted, sad and wimpy, you're not going to convince us that there's a chance of stopping it. It's only going to end when the actual villains get expelled, tried, convicted, thrown into prison and we all see it.

There will be plenty of time for our mercy and their atonement while serving out their sentences.