What apology?

Maybe it shouldn't have to come to this. But there it is. About a couple of weeks ago, Pope Francis told Roman Catholics they need to apologize to gays for having discriminated against them. Perhaps the stony silence that greeted his pleading eloquently sums up the reaction of Roman Catholics. None of the estimated 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world did as he or she was bidden. The papal exhortation was flatly ignored.      

Most Roman Catholics are reluctant to say or admit it but many felt betrayed by the exhortation. While it is true there are people who discriminate against gays and that many of them are Roman Catholics, it just isn't right to ask all Roman Catholics to atone for the sins of some. Besides, Roman Catholicism, in spite of its own views on homosexuality, has been very accommodating of gays.

One reality about Roman Catholicism that the pope must surely be aware of is that there are many priests, bishops, and even cardinals who are gay. Having so many gay people occupying varying levels of power and authority within the Roman Catholic Church is the best argument against requiring Roman Catholics to apologize for discriminating against gays.

On the other hand, if there is anyone within the Roman Catholic Church who needs to do some apologizing, it should be the gay priests and bishops who, for a long time, have used their authority and power to sexually abuse helpless little children with seeming impunity. Why the pope has got it all backward is difficult to understand.

In fact, Pope Francis himself is the third in a succession of three popes who had to do the apologizing to the victims of abuse and to the world because the sexual offenders themselves have become so obstinate. The much-revered and well-loved Pope John Paul II, now Saint John Paul, started this path to humility, followed by Benedict XVI, and then Francis himself.

That is why it is perplexing to have the pope require his entire flock to apologize for something that only some are guilty of doing when he has not succeeded in stopping the commission of real sins within the institution he heads. As it is now, the Roman Catholic Church continues to live with a very real elephant in the room. Unless it can deal with such an anomaly, the pope should not go looking for some other animal to wrestle with.

Perhaps, it is to the credit of Roman Catholics that they are so respectful of authority and have boundless patience because the truth is, a growing number of papal deeds and utterances have caused not a few to feel dismayed and confused. A pope should be a source of clarity and hope, especially in these difficult times when Roman Catholicism faces so many cultural and social challenges in addition to their religious requirements.

Christianity continues to be the world's leading religion with nearly three billion adherents. Roman Catholicism, for its part, remains as Christianity's biggest sectarian division. But of all these divisions, and perhaps even among the other religions, it is Roman Catholicism that seems to be hemorrhaging palpably. And it was Pope John Paul II himself who acknowledged the cause - disgruntlement with the abuses committed by Church leaders.

It does not help that in addition to the abuses, there is too much liberalism being tolerated by the Church at the expense of beliefs that ought to be constant, if not rigid. Such constancy and rigidness have always been the advantage of other religions. And that is because faith to them derives greater strength when there is no ambiguity in matters of belief.

Not so with the Roman Catholic Church, especially with this pope. There are so many Roman Catholic beliefs and traditions that Roman Catholics grew up believing all their lives, only to be turned all the way around by this pope. Such sea changes are difficult and would require a complete shakeup of entire lifetimes of belief. Those who cannot bear the changes end up jumping ship.

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