Catholics have something we Reformed folk don't - an obvious church heirarchy to scapegoat when things go wrong. But in this piece, Mark Shea outlines what he takes to be Pope John Paul II's thinking on 'bad bishops'. And it turns out that JPII considers the culture of the laity far more important that the offenses of particular clergy, and so works to deal with that, first and foremost. Now while this may sound like it's simply a reason not to deal with bad clergy, I think there's some very sound thinking behind it. According to Shea, JPII is acting just like a Dad who must let his children experience the bad consequences of their unhealthy actions, if they are to learn. Shea says that this is about going through, rather than around, the cross. It's interesting reading.

I suppose one thing for us to be thankful for is our tendency to focus on what 'we', the people, do, rather than scapegoating the elders for our own failings. Perhaps that's a happy outcome of not having an ostensibly powerful clergy.