DOCTRINAL TALK BY FATHER ED BLANCHETT
Scandal is nothing new to the Church or indeed to human understanding itself; it is as old as recorded history. The Old Testament is full of stories of individuals and kings from King David on, who behaved atrociously; just count how many times the kings of Israel made their children “pass through the fire”, a practice of sacrificing their children to the pagan god Moloch. At its very beginnings, the Church saw scandal in its leaders: Judas betrayed Jesus, Peter denied Jesus; all of the Apostles – except John – abandoned Jesus (probably with Peter leading the way out of town). In the 1500’s the behavior of many Catholic priests and bishops was so atrocious that an Augustinian priest decided the only way to deal with the situation was to separate from the Church. Although dedicated leaders such as St. Robert Bellarmine and St. Ignatius of Loyola led a true Counter-Reformation to address these failures, Martin Luther and others initiated the Protestant rebellion that continues to rock Ch