Posted 6:08 PM by Blah blah

Wishing people well:

- I wanted to wish Min Jung the very best as she starts her new job Monday.

- Wishing Tae and his girlfriend well! They got engaged last month. (And I'm the last to find out. :( )

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As Scandal Keeps Growing, Church and Its Faithful Reel (NY Times):

"The sexual abuse scandal engulfing the Roman Catholic Church, far from being nearly over, has only begun. Across the country, in an effort to restore credibility, many dioceses after another is volunteering to turn over its records to prosecutors. The publicity is emboldening more people to step forward with accusations of of sexual abuse. The news media daily are exposing new cases of priests accused as pedophiles and new reports of cover-ups.

Already, the scandal has traumatized the church's faithful, demoralized the clergy and threatened the hard-won moral authority of its bishops. It has brought down a bishop, removed dozens of priests and tarnished the nation's preeminent prelate, Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston. But the real extent of the impact on the church's life, status and future is only now becoming clear.

From schools of theology to dining- room tables, a growing number of Catholics are questioning the bedrock on which the church is built the all-male, celibate priesthood. Parishioners are calling for open dialogue and debate about a tenet that Pope John Paul II has said is closed for discussion.

In a startling step, the official Catholic newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston, said in an editorial on Friday that the Catholic Church must now confront questions and commission studies about whether the celibate, unmarried, all-male priesthood should be continued.

Cardinal Law, who is considered a conservative Vatican loyalist, said on Friday night that the editorial was not intended to question the church's position on clerical celibacy, but to reflect issues raised by others because of the scandal. No church leaders expect any immediate change in a doctrine that has served the church for centuries. But the practical effects of the scandal are evident already.

The church is at risk of losing some of the legal protections that have shielded it from criminal prosecution in the United States. Its moral authority on such issues as social justice and the status of Jerusalem is also in peril."