The Vatican is burning.

Just read in the New York Times a very good editorial by Maureen Dowd.
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Rome Fiddles, We Burn
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: July 16, 2010

I would simply change the title because Rome is the Capital of Italy and not of the Vatican which is a separate City State.

Ms Dowd makes several points which shows how much the senior management of the Vatican from the Pope down simply do not understand or do not wish to understand or see the terrible crisis they are not dealing with at the moment. The most recent pronouncement a new Vatican document links raping children with ordaining women as priests, deeming both “graviora delicta,” or grave offenses. Clerics who attempt to ordain women can now be defrocked.
How out of touch with reality can you get.

Ms. Dowd says in her article:

The Catholic Church continued to heap insult upon injury when it revealed its long-awaited new rules on clergy sex abuse, rules that the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said signaled a commitment to grasp the nettle with “rigor and transparency.”

The church still believes in its own intrinsic holiness despite all evidence to the contrary. It thinks it’s making huge concessions on the unstoppable abuse scandal when it’s taking baby steps.

The casuistic document did not issue a zero-tolerance policy to defrock priests after they are found guilty of pedophilia; it did not order bishops to report every instance of abuse to the police; it did not set up sanctions on bishops who sweep abuse under the rectory rug; it did not eliminate the statute of limitations for abused children; it did not tell bishops to stop lobbying legislatures to prevent child-abuse laws from being toughened.

There is no moral awakening here. The cruelty and indecency of child abuse once more inspires tactical contrition. All the penitence of the church is grudging and reactive. Church leaders are merely as penitent as they need to be to protect the institution

.

In other words the R.C. Church is trying to save the furniture while the building is on fire. Protecting itself, its priviledges, its properties and all other wordly goods it truly what it is all about. It is not about Jesus teachings or the word of God. No wonder there is a lack of vocations and priests are in very short supply everywhere, who wants to be a priest nowadays.

In the view of the Vatican, the church can never be wrong, the Vatican and the Pope make no mistakes ever. That is also Church doctrine invoke by Pope Pius IX in 1880 to protect himself against the New Italian Republic.
As one missionary said in Court during a trial on a pedophilia case, protecting the interest of the Church is far more important than some child abuse case, because the Church is doing God's work.
Interesting point of view isn't it?

What we see today has always been the position of the Vatican and this from the beginning when Emperor Constantine recognized Christianity as the only religion of the many religions of the Empire at the time. Protecting its material interest is paramount, religion is secondary.
The Church cannot change? Too bad really for all those in charge. What I see is the end of an institution as we speak, of course the zealots will always be around to defend Pope and institution no matter what, but if devout Catholic can walk away as we see it now, the Pope and others around him will be left whirling in the wind.

In other words, Trust in God, forget the rest.