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it was during this pope's reign that an unprecedented wave of scandals have washed over the Church. Dioceses around the world are packed with apostate bishops and cardinals

Actually, the scandals have their roots in the church of Paul VI. And modernism goes back to the turn of the century, when Pius X wrote an encyclical against modernism.

And as for "all the church" scandals, what you see is a few 20 year old scandals being blasted all over. They are terrible, but not universal, nor even common. Many European and US bishops are wishy washy in defending the faith, and after JPII dies, many of us suspect that Europe and much of the US will schism away from Rome.

What is little noticed however is that most Christians live in the third world.

The Episcopal church in the US and UK is being revitalized by missionaries from Africa and Asia.

And if you look in most diocese that still strongly defend the faith, you will find that they have priests from other countries working here. We just ordained a priest from Kenya to work in the local inner city. And my mother's parish has a young Vietnamese priest who came here as a refugee as a child.

The US church is fat and lazy, but don't judge the church by one small country.

Let me tell you something. For years the parishioners of the Springfield, IL Diocese suffered under a bad bishop. He introduced sex education in Catholic elementary schools and had small kids learning about oral sex and putting condoms on bananas. He hit on young priests and slept with them. He took teenage male prostitutes to his bedroom regularly. He appointed a priest who was a known practicing homosexual as the chancery bureaucrat in charge of sexual abuse complaints. Finally some Catholic lawyers got a dossier of proofs of malfeasance and they took it to the papal nuncio. Do you know what happened? Absolutely nothing. Finally the laymen went public and used the media to publicize this bishop's outrageous behavior. They brought on one of his boyfriends who was able to describe the bishop's bedroom, even his underwear. Of course he resigned. But it went on for over a decade despite protests to the Vatican.

So what, you say? The Pope didn't know, you say? But it is his duty to know! This was in the eighties when he was still robust. But people suffered because of so many incredibly bad appointments. Not just perverts, but apostates also, men with less Faith than the average church-on-Sunday Catholic. These were our spiritual shepherds!

The Pope is a holy man, but he has been unfocused and wasteful in his leadership. I grant he writes fine encyclicals expressing many profundities from a phenomenologist's perspective. I grant he is even a great statesman. I grant he has incredible charisma. But he has been a bad steward and a failure as a pope.

You say the US church is fat and lazy. You make my point. It was robust and vital in the fifties before Vatican II. Since then church attendance has dropped from 74% in 1950 to 17% today. Why? Christ said: by their fruits you shall know them. This corruption is not as inconsequential as you suppose. The scale and the nature of the evil is unprecedented in modern times. Seminarians cruising gay bars on weekends. Bishops hitting on young priests and seminarians. A cardinal writing a letter of praise for a priest he knew had raped a six-year-old. No repremand from the Pope. No scolding in Rome of the cardinals. A little p.r., a luncheon, business as usual. And this has gone on for twenty years.

I grant there are good priests. I know so many of them. I was a seminarian myself in the 80's and met many fine devout young men. But I met weirdos as well-- too many of them. What troubled me most was the lack of faith. The Blessed Sacrament, for instance, was kept in a room in the basement. Only myself and one other guy ever made a visit. It wasn't too long after that bad experience with phony priests and sexually active seminarians that I turned to traditional Catholicism. The difference is like day and night.

The Episcopal church in the US and UK is being revitalized by missionaries from Africa and Asia. And if you look in most diocese that still strongly defend the faith, you will find that they have priests from other countries working here. We just ordained a priest from Kenya to work in the local inner city. And my mother's parish has a young Vietnamese priest who came here as a refugee as a child.

The priest at my parish is from Sri Lanka, and believe me, he has that missionary and evangelizing spirit! Praise the Lord!

Our church is growing and we are looking at building a new church in five years and possibly a new school and gym within ten years. Already we had to buy a portable from a school district for our youth groups who had outgrown the rooms in our parish hall. It is so exciting to be serving in this parish at this time.