Absolutely spot on! It makes me sick to hear church authorities speak as if they are the victims.

Marie Fortune helped all of us face the truth in the '80s and '90s - hope the Pope hears of her work and listens.

3. Stop being defensive and complaining that the media coverage is a “pretext for attacking the Church.” You created this problem by not responding to disclosures of abuse and by trying to hide them instead of dealing with them.

This is CRITICAL (See re the Good Friday homily by Fr Rainero Cantalamessa, Preacher to the Papal Household, at St Peter's today. See re the Palm Sunday homily by NY Archbishop Dolan. See re dang near every homily on EWTN the past couple of weeks). It's just defensive (if not OFFENSIVE!) rationalization, after defensive rationalization. It's disgusting!

JC Fisher

Unfortunately, an institution based on authority and infallibility, and which has a bylaw saying, "The Pope is judged by no one," will find self-awareness and humility extraordinarily difficult. All of the mechanisms listed in this sound advice are deeply embedded in the system, in a contrary direction.

Unfortunately, the Vatican crowd follow the advice of Caiaphas -- the institution is more important than people who make it up.

Yes, Tobias. The irony is that by seeking to save the institution they doom the institution. What's good for the people is good for the institution.

There again, if they know that what's good for any institution is to follow this advice perhaps what they are doing is protecting their own hides. We hear the mantra, "we did it to protect the institution" as if the bishops who aided and abetted abuse did it for unselfish reasons. That's BS.

As the NCR says in a recent editorial, no bishop has yet to suffer any real consequences:

http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/credibility-gap-pope-needs-answer-questions

"Like it or not, this new focus on the pope and his actions as an archbishop and Vatican official fits the distressing logic of this scandal. For those who have followed this tragedy over the years, the whole episode seems familiar: accusation, revelation, denial and obfuscation, with no bishop held accountable for actions taken on their watch. Yes, there is a depressing madness to this story. Time after time, this is a story of institutional failure of the deepest kind, a failure to defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a failure to put compassion ahead of institutional decisions aimed at short-term benefits and avoiding public scandal.

The strategies employed so far -- taking the legal path, obscuring the truth, and doing everything possible to protect perpetrators as well as the church's reputation and treasury -- have failed miserably. We now face the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in church history."

In all seriousness, the Archbishop of Canterbury should invite the parishes of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Ireland into the Church of England. Yes, this flies in the face of the move "to Rome" by parishes desiring a stricter church and better discipline, but the actions of the Church in Ireland far transcend making women priests or consecrating gay people as bishops. Indeed, "let he who is without sin..."

The Anglican Communion offers a structure similar to Rome's, but possibly with greater accountability. Certainly new management would do a through investigation of the status quo ante.

The Anglican provinces in many parts of the world have the same doctrinal issues with the American church as the Roman Catholics. The invitation extended by the Archbishop might be to Roman Catholic churches in Africa, where homosexuality is viewed at best with great distaste and often as a capital offense.

Interestingly, the quarter-page ad placed on the op-ed page of an issue of the NY Times by the Catholic League last week blamed gays. Hmmm.

I agree with John Marquette, it is time for us to step up and offer refuge to Roman Catholics who cannot, in good conscience, remain in a church that has lost credibility.