A painful period for the Church

Roy Cimagala, Philippines Daily Inquirer, Asia News Network, Manila

Priests are the "flavor of the month" these days. Thanks, but no thanks, to what's happening in the States these days.

I would like to take this occasion to unite myself firmly with the U.S. cardinals and bishops who are now under fire, and who have to do a lot of explaining and apologizing.

All faithful, and most especially us, priests, have to make heavy atonement for these very scandalous sins.

A constant ingredient in priestly lifestyle should be continuing atonement. We priests should be prepared to be crucified everyday.

Still we have to move on, and learn whatever we can from this truly sad episode of the Church's life. I am sure our local bishops are also waking up. There are a lot of things that can be learned.

Among them is that our Church authorities should have the solid prudence to distinguish and at the same time blend mercy and justice, tolerance and intolerance, discretion and transparency.

Especially in clergy affairs that have direct impact on the faithful, a greater strictness should be applied. Problems and incipient scandals should be immediately and decisively addressed. The reasons are quite obvious.

Being servant-leaders, priests should be exemplary and as much as possible impeccable in their behavior. We should be the first ones to show that we need to constantly improve ourselves.

We should be quick to apologize for whatever shortcoming we may have, much more, for whatever mistakes and offenses we may have committed. And we should be ready to face, and not flee from, the consequences of our actions.

Of course, these are things to work and struggle on daily. We cannot deny that all of us are sinners, including priests, but no one has the right to scandalize others, even though scandals are unavoidable. Problems involving priests should not be solved by ignoring them, or simply hoping that some propitious circumstance will just crop up to solve these problems in time.

Matters have to be immediately studied, proper consultations and investigations have to be made, and decisions should be reached and implemented. Things should be done such that any impression of the clergy being an "old boys' club" where issues and problems are discussed and resolved without due regard to public interest, should be erased.

But above all these, there should be the constant concern for better and more effective selection of candidates to the priesthood, a solid program of formation that is based on a living spirituality, and not just on theories and pietistic slogans and cliches.

The continuing formation of priests should be institutionalized. They -- we -- should never be left on our own, especially where our spiritual lives are concerned. We have to understand well that to lead the faithful pastorally means first of all to lead them spiritually.

If the material needs of priests should always be taken care of, how much more their spiritual needs, even if the priests concerned -- a real problem these days -- may show indifference and complacency in their spiritual lives.

The bonds of fraternity among priests should be strengthened, such that everyone helps everybody else, not only humanly speaking, but more importantly, spiritually speaking.

This painfully purifying period of the Church should also be an occasion for all of us to be most determined in the fight against the culture of immorality gripping the world today often in most subtle ways.

I find it ironic that we make a lot of fuss, and rightly so, when people of authority, especially priests, commit some immoralities, yet we seem to be blind, deaf and mute toward clear elements of immorality so freely promoted in our society today.

Priests with problems should also be given due attention and care so they can be helped and rehabilitated.