Extraordinary Sanctimony

The Roman Catholic Church is celebrated for attracting individuals whose personas appeal as genuinely compassionate people, willing to give up personal lives to function as emissaries of the Church, to serve as shepherds for the meek and the mild and to bring sinners toward God in a healing process that brings fallible human beings into God's courtyard of forgiving loving-kindness. Parishioners admire these saintly figures, and learn to trust them.

Trusting these extraordinary men of God to absolve them of their sins. And themselves resolving to try harder to attain to the standards of self-respecting self-governance that a merciful God has ordained should prevail. And then, all those faithful are suddenly sucker-punched by the reality that those in whom they place their faith to bring them closer to God's ideal are themselves ardent sinners.

Sinners of a type that society would find extremely difficult to forgive. Sinners performing egotistically dangerous acts against the most vulnerable within any society, for whose actions there is no excuse. Those who lead must lead with purity of heart, isn't that so? So it's difficult for anyone to support belief in the innocence of men, long established in the Church, with shining reputations, known to the Vatican as the finest of their shepherds, to find them fallen.

Into utter disgrace. Those in whom so much trust and respect has been placed have been found to be, in reality, child abusers, predators, the outcasts of the human social contract. Seeking their pleasure in the domination of the defenceless, the violation of children. A mere few months earlier, the revelations that Father James Jordan of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate had been arrested for possession of child pornography shocked those who knew him.

Held in high regard, he had been dispatched as an emissary to Kenya, as director of the New Blessed Joseph Cebula House of Philosophy in the Nairobi mission. To focus on assistance to the indigent, through missionary work. On a brief vacation from his post in Kenya, on entering Ottawa following an investigation his passport was removed and he was ordered to remain at the Oblates premises until further notice.

And now, none other than the Bishop of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Raymond Lahey, (now resigned), has just surrendered himself to Ottawa police in response to a Canada-wide warrant for his arrest on child pornography charges. His reputation too was immense, known for his outstanding work in settling claims of the victims of sexual abuse by former diocesan priests.

"I want to formally apologize to every victim and to their families for the sexual abuse that was inflicted upon those who were entitled instead to the trust and protection of priests of the Church. Sexual abuse, indeed any abuse, is wrong, It is a crime, and it is a serious sin in the eyes of God" Bishop Lahey said at that memorable time.

At this time - with the eyes of the law upon this man who had studied canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, with further studies at the University of Cambridge - Bishop Lahey saw the need to suddenly resign his post, one day following charges of possession of child pornography and importation of child pornography.

Long past time for the Roman Catholic Church to heal itself. For it too has sinned, in keeping close to its ecclesiastical vestments the knowledge of these men's cardinal crimes against children's human rights; their right to be free and safe from the predations of such sanctimonious men, without an iota of true remorse for the damage they do.