Professor: Lay people should help pick bishops - Essay Example

Summary Lay people should help pick bishops” Peter Smith in his article Lay people should help pick bishops” emphasizes on the need of total transparency in the process of bishop selection. This is mainly due to the frequent scandals of child abuse by bishops of Roman Catholic sect. The author observes and states that bishops selected through an opaque process become a main cause of this abuse. The, prevalent method of selection is intricate, which is dependent upon references from several other bishops then the recommendation is forwarded to Papal Nuncio and eventually it is discussed and finalized with the consent of Us diplomatic representative and pope (Smith, 2014).

The whole process is for the benefit of general public, but ironically they have no formal participation or opinion in this matter. Nevertheless, few financially influential people have been selected for the advisory roles, but it does not suffice or serve the purpose of common and apparent participation. The purpose of choosing bishops is to select a compatible and compassionate religious figure, which can influence and role model his taught preaching. The prevalent and recent system is reliant on upward loyalty criteria, which leaves the deserving, empathetic, loyal and considerate preachers neglected by the front bench selectors.

The criterion of assessing these future bishops is often relevant to their opinion regarding modern day religious crises for instance same sex marriage, abortion and female bishops, which evidentially neglects the more important aspect being empathetic.The main issue behind clergy men and child abuse is lack of resolution of problems by the existent priests; they have been waiting for the directions and resolutions from Rome and in the due process the issue of child abuse has reached it optimum level.

Necessary steps at the time of problem development (behavioral) have not been established due to lack of evaluation. If these religious figures have been rightly selected according to their practiced preaching, they would have been more beneficial for Roman Catholics. The main crisis is lay man does not find any connection between the statement of a preacher and real life. Therefore, he is prone to trust an election held in State instead of episcopal office selection criteria. References Smith, P. (2014). Professor: lay people should help pick bishops.

[online] Retrieved from: http://blogs.post-gazette.com/news/popular-belief/40751-professor-lay-people-should-help-pick-bishops [Accessed: 26 Feb 2014].