Think the Scandal is Over?

Think again. Amy Welborn has a disturbing story here. Here's the gist:

Single and unemployed, Stephanie Collopy asked a Portland judge this month to order her son's father to increase her child support and to add their chronically ill boy to his health insurance plan.

Sitting on the witness stand in a white button-down shirt, gray slacks and blue blazer with a small gold cross on the lapel, Arturo Uribe -- the 12-year-old boy's father -- had an unusual defense: He is a Roman Catholic priest.

Uribe, who was a seminarian when he fathered the boy during a consensual affair with Collopy, had taken a vow of poverty and therefore had no money to support his son, he told the court. Now pastor of the 4,000-family St. Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church in Whittier, Calif., Uribe had never seen the boy, who was born in 1993.

How long, O Lord, how long, until you send us More Shepards with Spines. For there are too few, too few.

How does a man that can't complete his formation as a seminarian without violating chastity become ordained? Why would the Redemptorists allow such a scandal to happen? Because our culture celebrates as gospel the One Thing That Matters. And besides, we're Christians. We're supposed to forgive. That means we can't think of punishment. That would be too Old Testament.

As though compassion and justice were mutually exclusive. The pathetic cooperation with a corrupt culture goes on. How long, O Lord, how long?

By the way, one of Amy's commentors, Elizabeth McKenna, tells a heartbreaking tale of abuse that all of us should read. We must demand that our priests and Bishops adhere to the teachings of our Faith and accept no less than complete fidelity to their vows. Otherwise, the sacrilidge of Ordained men commiting sexual crimes against minors of either sex will continue.