The Catholic church is a mess over the child abuse scandals. The entire front page of 'Texas Catholic' is covered with the pope's face and talk of Vigano. The Pope will not be able to brush this off. The church I attend had a day of prayer over it and there is definitely an undercurrent of unease over it.

I know some people like to badmouth the Catholic church or call it unchristian (which strikes me as a bizarre accusation as someone familiar with the church) but I can attest to the fact that after the last slew of sex abuse claims, the church implemented rules akin to gun control laws only to prevent child molestation.

What do I mean by that? They have very strict rules in the church about who can be around children. EVERYONE has to be 'safe environment' cleared. This means you have to take a training class. You have to have a criminal background check and they put your name in a database that says you check out.

Beyond that there's a golden rule that no adult is allowed to be watching children unless there is at least one other adult present (preferably more). This means that almost every Sunday school class has 2-3 adults assigned to each class.

The reason I say this is like gun control laws is that it's essentially putting arbitrary rules on the good law-abiding adults in an attempt to curb the non-law-abiding ones. But think about it, a pedophile with determination isn't going to follow the rules so all those handy little golden rules aren't going to stop abuse. They might put more eyes on the children and maintain a level of heightened awareness about such issues, but it creates a broader problem for the church in requiring more volunteers.

I honestly think the good people in the church have tried very hard to address the problem, but it'll never be solved until the people in charge are held accountable and given the boot.