Since I’m a lifelong Lutheran, of the conservative Missouri Synod variety, you might think I’d be indifferent about the massive priest scandal in Pennsylvania. After all, it’s “not my circus, not my monkeys,” as the saying goes. In fact, I just might view it with a bit of Schadenfreude. See, Luther was right!

Actually, this is more personal to me than you may think. Our son-in-law is Roman Catholic. While our Lutheran daughter will not convert, she has agreed to raise their children as Catholics. They attend Mass as a family, and our grandson will begin first grade in a Catholic school next month.

But we’ve been content that in an increasingly secular society, she married someone who practices the Christian faith. My husband and I are thankful for that.

Yet here we all are, facing another scandal in the Catholic Church. And it’s far from the first.

The stories are nauseating.

• In Greensburg, PA, a priest impregnated a 17-year-old, forged another clergyman’s name on a marriage certificate, and then divorced her after the baby was born. He was allowed to stay in the ministry.
• In Harrisburg, PA, a priest raped a 7 year-old-girl who was in the hospital for a tonsillectomy.
• Another priest molested five sisters from the same family.
• Yet another abusive priest left the priesthood for a job at. . . Disney World. Church officials gave him a positive reference.

And on and on it goes. The stories from the survivors will break your heart:

Now it’s not as if the Roman Catholic Church has a monopoly on sex scandals. Televangelists Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker became the evangelical poster boys for sexcapades. Nowadays Bakker is selling real estate and outrageously-priced water bottles — all in the event of an Apocalypse. Once a con man, always a con man, I guess.

There have been murderers among the clergy, too. In 1983 Kansas Lutheran pastor Rev. Tom Bird killed his wife and then staged her body in a car-accident scene. He had been having an affair with the church secretary, and his poor wife was in the way.

But no powerful clergy tried to whitewash those cases. Bird and Bakker went to prison for criminal deeds. Swaggart still has a ministry, though, even though he has been defrocked.

So where does the Roman Catholic Church go from here?

Daily Wire columnist Matt Walsh, a devout Catholic who is not everyone’s cup of tea, was blunt:

The Catholic Church in the West is beset by a plague. An infection. A virus that must be rooted out and utterly destroyed. There must be a purge in the Church. And the purge must be ruthless and brutal and uncompromising.

On his Twitter feed, Walsh took things one step farther, which riled up some readers. But that’s Matt Walsh for you:

Homosexuals have committed over 80 percent of the abuse in the Catholic Church. That is an empirical fact and it is not really up for debate. https://t.co/avWSYFdV7y

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) August 15, 2018

Actually, I think Walsh may have a point.

Many years ago, I read a book entitled, Goodbye, Good Men. Written in 2002 by Michael Rose, a Catholic reporter, it tells how these scandals come from the seminary, where liberals in the church have allowed homosexuality in the name of “tolerance.” There is also prejudice, he maintains, against traditional seminaries.

Here’s what Rose said in an interview with a Catholic publication in 2002:

In bringing the “sexual revolution” into the Church, liberals have welcomed—even preferred—radicalized active homosexuals to orthodox seminarians in the name of “tolerance.” Now that tolerance has been exposed as a toleration of criminal acts.

Mind you, this book is now 16 years old, and we’re seeing yet again another sexual scandal. The crisis will not go away.

But allow this Lutheran to make a couple of suggestions.

First, as Matt Walsh suggests, the church should purge all corrupt hierarchy who have engaged in cover-ups. It should also turn in abusive priests to authorities.

Then, maybe the church should promote a married priesthood, instead of a celibate clergy.

Father Richard McBrien, who was a professor of theology at Notre Dame, believed the church should drop the celibacy requirement for priests. In 2004, he wrote why it’s a problem:

But that requirement of the priesthood will attract a disproportionately high percentage of men who are sexually dysfunctional, sexually immature, or whose orientation will raise the question – are they attracted to the priesthood because of the ministry, or because it is a profession that forbids one to be married?

That is not to say that all priests are gay or have sexual issues. However, as Fr. McBrien wrote, the priesthood tends to attract that sort of man. What better place for a good Catholic boy with homosexual urges to be: in the seminary where no family or friends will question why he’s not dating anyone. It’s because he’s devoting his life to the church. Such a devout boy!

Combine that with the scenario Rose describes of “tolerant” seminaries, and you have a perfect storm.

Matt Walsh warned non-Catholics in his Twitter feed: “don’t call for accountability in a church you don’t even belong to. . .” He’s wrong here. As I wrote above, I have loved ones who are part of that church. Moreover, this also affects me as a Christian. When the Catholic Church engages and then covers up such horrendous behavior, it reflects back on all of us who claim the name of Christ.

Even if I am one of those renegade Lutherans.