Backbiting, hypocrisy, dishonesty at the Vatican; where are the grownups on this planet?

I used to think that teachers lounges were particularly good examples of backbiting, hypocrisy and dishonesty. But as I learned more about the world, I found that almost every organization I came across exhibited this very same behavior. I used to think 90% of people were honest--but that might be because I spent 27 years of my life teaching elementary school.

But in 2001 I was introduced to the real world, and I've gotten to know the layers of society that have some power. Now I think that 90% of people are dishonest. I came to this conclusion after doing a series of depositions of elementary school teachers, administrators and lawyers, and examining the actions of administrators and board members.

I now think that 90% of organizations are corrupt. I happen to be personally familiar with corruption in schools. When our schools and our clergy fail our children, it's more shocking than when some faceless corporation violates the law.

The thing that bothers me most about the clique in the Vatican is the hypocrisy and dishonesty. It's become very obvious over the past twenty years that the Church would be a better institution if priests were allowed to marry, and if women were allowed to be priests. After all, this isn't the first time in history that the Catholic Church has behaved in a heinous manner.

The world has changed, and the inability to marry has become a deal breaker for too many of the people who would be wonderful priests. Also, many of the people who would be wonderful priests are female.

I was talking to a female Episcopal priest in San Diego, and she told me how she had felt unworthy to be a priest.

I said, "But then you read about all the priests who abuse children, and you quit feeling unworthy, right?

She smiled and nodded her head.

Scandals and Intrigue Heat Up at Vatican Ahead of Papal Conclave

By RACHEL DONADIO
New York Times
February 23, 2013

VATICAN CITY — As cardinals from around the world begin arriving in Rome for a conclave to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, new shadows have fallen over the delicate transition, which the Vatican fears might influence the vote and with it the direction of the Roman Catholic Church.
v In recent days, often speculative reports in the Italian news media — some even alleging gay sex scandals in the Vatican, others focusing on particular cardinals stung by the child sex abuse crisis — have dominated headlines, suggesting fierce internal struggles as prelates scramble to consolidate power and attack enemies in the dying days of a troubled papacy.

...The volley of news reports since appeared to underscore the backbiting in the Vatican that Benedict was unable to control, and provided a hint of why he might have decided that someone younger and stronger should lead the church...