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By Joanna DelBuono
Brooklyn Daily
A few weeks ago I wrote about the new pope and his blowing a fresh new wind into the stuffy old traditions of the church. Well it was short lived. According to an article in the Daily News, it seems that the new is actually the same old same old when you get right down to it. Basically the new fisherman wants the church to go out and worry about the poor and wretched in order to get back to Jesus.
And I got to say I don’t agree. I think the church needs to get back to reality and face what it should have faced long ago, and then it can get back to Jesus and worrying about the poor and wretched.
And that reality is the big fat 3,000 pound gorilla that is sitting in the living room — yup you guessed it — the abuse scandal. It isn’t going to go away by itself. The Catholic community needs transparency before it can get any closure. And that means the Holy See has to Open Sesame the golden doors that have remained shut for far too long. It is time the Vatican let out the moths and clear the fetid air that has hid the scandal in white robes, trimmed in gold braid.
In order for a religion to survive, it has to keep up with the times and its people. It also must practice what it preaches. No more mea culpas without a reality check. The Catholic community doesn’t need any more rotting old corpses hiding out behind those gilded doors.
Pope Francis has to make a choice. Does he hide behind the same old tried-and-true dogma by reaching out to the wretched and poor, or does he let the light shine on the reality of the scandal that has been the worm in this little apple in the Garden of Eden too long as it is?
I’m 100 percent sure that Papa Francis needs to oil up the barrels and come out shooting in order for him to have any validity among his flock and seeing the church through this whole pocked-marked treachery. He also has to accept some really hard truths. And that is in 2013 we are all literate, we can read, we can think and we have access to a world of information at our fingertips.
Let’s cut the flimflam version, and hear the truth. It’s the only thing that will set the church free.
The time for transparency is now.
Not for Nuthin, but the church can no longer hide the priests that committed the crimes, nor can it hide all its findings. Those reports need to be out and in the open, those priests need to be held accountable.
Then and only then can the Papa go out and reach all the wretched and poor he wants in order to get back to Jesus.
Follow me on Twitter @JDelBuono.
Joanna DelBuono writes about national issues every Wednesday on BrooklynDaily.com. E-mail her at jdelbuono@cnglocal.com.