"Persecution" Does Not Include Taking A Beating When You Deserve It: A Word to the Pope

When Pope Bendict XVI (hereinafter simply "the pope") arrived in Portugal, he said "The greatest persecution of the church doesn't come from enemies on the outside but is born from the sins within the church." I agree with the part where he says they brought it on themselves.

I do not agree it is persecution. Calls for the Roman Catholic Church to be accountable for molesting children is not persecution. Calls for transparency and documentation of what you knew, when you knew, and what you did about it are not persecution.

Child abuse scandals are showing up all over the globe, as priests have molested those most vulnerable ones in their care. If another organization, any other organization in the world, showed this patter of child sexual abuse and cover up, there would be world wide calls for accountability, prosecution and punishment. I do not see any reason the RCC should be immune to that.

1 Peter 2:20 says "But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it?"

Every priest that abused a child should be prosecuted. Every church official that helped him do it by covering it up, transferring him to another parish with no warning, bribing or coercing the victims to stay silent, quashing investigations etc., should be prosecuted as parties to the crime, for they aided and abetted the criminal.

That is not persecution. Let's not call it that. If you want to make a statement of contrition just say, we really sinned and we deserve what we get. Bring it on and we'll take it.

Oh, and let's quit saying we have a store of good works we can use to sell indulgences. I think the thousands of sex abuse cases depleted that bank.

"The Old English Puritan was such an one, that honored God above all..." from The Character of an Old English Puritan or Non-Conformist, by Master John Geree.

I would like to see Southern Baptists be more like the Puritans, honoring God over programs, politics and posterity. Living to please him in the conduct of our lives. Whatever might be said of us, it would be said "they do everything to honor God and not themselves".

At the end of his essay, Geree wrote "He (the Puritan) was a man of tender heart, not only in regard of his own sin, but others misery, not counting mercy arbitrary, but a necessary duty..."

There is a lot of misery around us. Some are miserably unemployed. Some are miserably divorced, or miserably married, or miserably single. Some are miserably sick. Some are miserably poor.

I love the Puritans. You know this if you know me. I love them because they sought to live all of life for Christ, to the glory of God. They examined life. They thought about what they did and how it should be done to the glory of God. They examined the Bible to see what it said about everything, then applied it.

Just as the Old Testament tells us not to have a closed hand toward the poor, we need an open heart, a tender heart in Geree's words.

Saturday, you can donate food to the poor by setting it out by your mailbox. Mail carriers will pick it up and deliver it. You cannot get easier than that.

Be tender hearted. Alleviate someone's misery. Demonstrate the love of Christ.

Honor God above all.

Godspeed.

AN ARREST HAS BEEN MADE

A man from Pakistan, a naturalized citizen, has been arrested in the Times Square bombing. Anyone want to be me he is neither Christian or Jewish?

ABC says police have a possible suspect for the Times Square Bombing.

OH NO - NOT A TASK FORCE! ANYTHING BUT THAT!

You know it is getting serious: a task force has been formed to investigate the Times Square attempted bombing.

Government workers define a task force as something created to make the public think something constructive is being done about a problem no one knows how to solve.

The Washington Post is reporting that the attempted car bombing in Times Square is an act of terrorism with international links.

see pictures of my beautiful grand daughter here.