Dear Friends of Dial Daily Bread:

    The latest issue of NEWSWEEK features a cover article exposing "Sex" with "Shame" that embarrasses the hierarchy of the world's largest Christian church. "80 Priests Accused of [sexual] Child Abuse in Boston" alone, and consequent "New Soul-searching Across America," says the newsmagazine.  Many other priests across the land are implicated.  The article is
subtitled, "Sins of the Fathers,"  borrowing the phrase from the second of God's Ten Commandments where He vows to hold them responsible (Ex 20:5). Painful, this is!

    "There but for the grace of God go I" is what every ordained minister must say, of whatever denomination.  The pictures of the accused priests are pathetic. When they were young men in training for what they innocently assumed was the holy priesthood, they had no idea they would end up photographed in handcuffs in publicized court trials.  They sincerely wanted to serve their church and their Savior and Redeemer.  Ministers of other churches should be humble; we are no better by nature than these accused priests.  They are caught in a system of life that exposes human weaknesses to which any man is capable of falling victim.  That is, if he is enmeshed in the same philosophy.

    The problem is two fold: (1) Our Creator and Redeemer "said, It is not good that the man should be alone" (Gen 2:18).  Thus He never planned for men to be celibate.  This system itself is thus contrary to that simple word of God, imposing on priests a form of life that God has never required of His servants, at least in general. (2) The dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary removes Christ from being the Savior of human beings who are tempted sexually, as it enforces a non-biblical view of Mary herself and thus of her Son.  His name is "Immanuel, God WITH us," not God far from us.  By teaching that Mary was "desolidarized" from sinful humans, it implies she was never tempted sexually.  Thus Jesus is
automatically also "exempted"  from being "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin"  (cf. Heb 4:15).  But He alone can save FROM sin!

  The photos of the faces of the priests show deep inner turmoil of soul.  May God lead us all back to pure Bible teaching! There alone can we find deliverance from the horror of sin.