Some guy on horseback named "Pestilence" just rode by.

Wonder of wonders--I agree with just about every single word of a National Catholic Reporter editorial.

Yes, that's the Reporter I am talking about.

Well-reasoned, thoughtful and absolutely dead on. Except for the national commission idea--I'm pretty well blue-ribboned out (the local I am more open to).

In speaking of the “disclosure of sins” in the sacrament of reconciliation, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Through such an admission man looks squarely at the sins he is guilty of, takes responsibility for them, and thereby opens himself again to God and to the communion of the church in order to make a new future possible.”

While that refers, of course, to individual confession, doesn’t the same hold true for institutional sins that block the path to a new future? That understanding of sacramental theology -- which none of us limits to just the encounter in the confessional, but which we also experience daily in relationships in every sphere of our lives -- is deep in our bones. We know that when a bishop asks forgiveness it is an empty request unless we know why he asks.

RTWT.