My oldest and I had fun with this analogy… over breakfast. (This kind of talk during a meal doesn’t have any adverse effect on us apparently!) Anyway, I thought it was pretty good so here goes.

The abuse scandal in the Catholic Church is like a real nasty toenail fungus. It’s been discovered and can’t be covered by polish, or covered with shoes. It’s out.

The church in America feels responsibility for this fungus. They are applying massive amounts of creams and ointments. They are insisting that their employees and volunteers learn how to avoid the fungus, detect the fungus, even keep the nails trimmed and this is all well and good in keeping the fungus isolated and unable to spread further or get worse.

HOWEVER, unless the fungus is treated systemically it will always be there, hidden under the nail, ready to come back another day.

And so it is with the scandal. The reaction, which is a noble and repentant one to be sure, of the church in American has been to treat the scandal, soothe the victims, and apply generous amounts of plans and procedures in the laity so that the infection doesn’t come back again. But the fungus is still there and has been rooted in place for over 30 years. I call the fungus dissent, and it will die if exposed to the light of Catholic truth in moral teaching. But if that never happens, if Catholics from the cradle onward are deprived of authentic Catholic teaching, and if that teaching is kept out of seminaries and Catholic Colleges in the name of “academic freedom,” it’s not going away. It may pop out in other forms, but it’s not going away.