Regarding the recent pedophilia scandal rocking the Catholic Church, I wanted to express my viewpoints on the issue.

The fact that priests are coming out of the woodwork as pedophiles is not what is shocking about this issue. Pedophiles deliberately put themselves in the position where they can be around children-this is why so many pedophiles are usually teachers, baby-sitters, etc.-people who have easy access to children. Priests are constantly around children, and this is what has attracted pedophiles to the priesthood. They are aware that they have a problem, and to fix it, they think that if they become a priest, they can hide their problem more easily and not be suspected.

The fact that is shocking about this issue is that the Church has been well aware of the fact that pedophilia exists within the Church, and has been hiding it for years. Most of the people coming out with stories about priest pedophilia happened decades ago.

The Church continues to cling to the idea that the pope, bishops, and priests, as representatives of God on earth, must be infallible. However, this is impossible. They are people just like everyone else, and cannot be expected to be perfect.

What the Catholic Church needs to do is return to the basics-the original teachings of the Lord. The Church is not supposed to be about anything except Jesus. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that priests are infallible. However, the Bible does acknowledge that no people are free from sin, and that includes priests.

The very core of the Bible is the idea of the confessing and forgiving of sins. This is what the Catholic Church must do-follow its own teachings. Instead of running away from this issue, they must acknowledge the fact that they did wrong by trying to hide this issue from people instead of facing it, and then they must work to make it right in order to be forgiven. This is what Jesus taught, and the church needs to start practicing what they preach.