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This article touches upon an issue to which I have given quite a bit of thought. It involves the difference between men and woman, and the way they deal with discipline. In general, woman are warm, compassionate, and nurturing. Men are strong and protective. That is why it is so important that a child have both a mommy and a daddy-to strike that balance. A large part of the American bishops, and many of the clergy have gone the way of the liberal clergy of other denominations. They are ultra-compassionate. They are extremely caring. They are nurturing and therapeutic. In other words, they are WOMANLY. I don't mean they are effeminate-that is a whole 'nother story. I mean that when they view a homicidal killer on death row, they feel compassion, like a mother would. When confronted with the evil of communism, they urged unilateral disarmament, like a teenage girl would. When saddled with the responsibility of determining the fate of a predatory homosexual exploiter priest, their hearts tell them to give the poor unfortunate another chance, where a male sensibility would demand the axe.

Mothers are incredible, indispensible creatures. They don't make good Catholic bishops.

I think we can agree that the bishops need to take discipline more seriously. But as for your comments about mercy and compassion as being peculiarly feminine, I can't agree. The entire point of Christianity is that man is redeemed through unmerited grace. Paul makes quite clear that with the coming of the Kingdom, man's relationship to the Law is utterly changed. In the Kingdom, sin is wrong not because by the transgression of a moral code we can somehow offend the honor of God; it's wrong because by sinning we alienate ourselves from God and ultimately from life, in an act of existential suicide. This is not to dismiss the manly virtue of self-discipline; it's simply to remind you that self-discipline is only a means to an end, not the end itself.

As for unilateral disarmament, you're just mistaken. The Church works for authentic peace, but has never been pacifist. She has always recognised the right to self-defense, as a natural corollary of both the prohibition against killing and the duty in charity to protect the defenseless. The Church does prohibit indiscriminate killing, and for this reason she considers weapons of mass destruction to be illicit, as it's impossible to confine their use to lawful military targets.