PUNISH, THEN FORGIVE: Good USS Clueless post on the continuing Catholic crisis. “…Cardinal George sees the possibility in there for forgiveness and reassignment of child molesters to positions in the church where they don’t deal with children. I don’t have a problem with that. I really don’t. After they’ve been released from prison, I think that the Church should accept them back if they want to come and are truly reformed.”

I’d add that the Church can’t and shouldn’t give up hope for anyone’s redemption. Forgiveness doesn’t mean doing nothing. It for sure doesn’t mean shuffling abusers from post to post. It means giving, with charity and self-sacrifice, to men who act horribly–in other words, visiting them in prison. That’s one of the corporal works of mercy. Shielding such men from the law is emphatically not.

I don’t see “ambiguity” in the Pope’s words either, frankly. When someone commits a horrible crime, we often leap to cast him out of the human race; we abandon all hope for him. We treat him as an alien, and, in fact, often use his crime and shame to feel better about ourselves. (“I’m nothing like him! I don’t need mercy!”) That’s a self-righteous response, not a Christian one. The Pope is right to warn against it.

(Link via Amy Welborn.)