Men Sin Because They Are Sinners:
A child molestation scandal of apocalyptic proportions has griped the Catholic Church. Almost a hundred Catholic Priests are exposed as pedophiles. Only the tip of the iceberg, I fear. Yet a recent contributor to the Readers’ Forum still holds as sacred the blessing of a child molester. What planet am I on?
Can’t you just picture God scratching His head and saying, “What do I have to do to wake these people up, drop a ton of bricks on their head?”
Men sin because they are sinners; they are not sinners because they sin. Whether a Catholic pedophile, a Baptist whore-monger, a minister embezzling funds, or any other clergy with skeletons in his closet. Men are sinners. All men. This is Christianity 101.
Jesus had a few stinging words for the religious leaders of his day who thought they had arrived in a spiritual sense.
Once you understand that we sin because we are sinners, we are not sinners because we sin, wonderful things will begin to happen. You will avoid the two deadly extremes of self-condemnation and self-righteousness. Sincere Christians hunger and thirst after righteousness. Still we fall short; we miss the mark.
There is only one person who can forgive sins and that’s the man who died for them.
PRINTED IN TOLEDO BLADE: August 12, 2002