My thoughts on the Church scandals

Our problem is not with God, it's with sin and evil men. People need to keep this in proper perspective.

I hear a lot of angry talk but this gets us nowhere. Good priests are being persecuted, beat up, for just being a priest. Anger only fuels the fire. People need to be careful of their words.

We need to pray more, but no one wants to do this, because prayer requires a complete humbling of self; it means leaving something with God and trusting he will take care of it. It means no one hears our fancy words but God Himself. There will be no "likes" to keep us going. It means admitting to yourself that this is completely out of your hands, and God is your last hope, when he should have been your first.

We need to get back to fasting and sacrificing. This is living a holy life. It's what we've been called to. Now we see what happens when we avoid it for so long. Sin takes over.

We need to pray for our priests. How many times have we been told this over the many years? And finally, now, we understand why. They are under constant persecution from the devil. Priests are the most valuable weapon on earth because they give us the Sacraments--how can we be so negligent in thinking that they don't need our prayers and protection?

Last, as horrible as this is, as sad as it makes me, we are all sinners. We can't get distracted by the gravity of the sin. We need to only pray for the sinner--and pray for ourselves, that we might not get lost in our own weakness.

God owns us--the devil doesn't. "The gates of Hell shall not prevail against you." (Matthew 16:17)

Humility, people. Anger is not behind humility. Just anger gets you doing something about it, but emotional anger cripples you so that you can't move forward.

Forgiveness.