Why so many Catholic priest have been found guilty of sexually abusing children and youth and why so many bishops and other church officials have tolerated and, in effect, encouraged such serious offenses puzzles most of us. It puzzles a lot of Catholics. One large piece of the puzzle may be this. Many officials in the Roman Catholic Church have not entirely rid themselves of the medieval presumption of theirs being the established church. Remnants of the established church mentality has persisted and now emerge where we can recognize them.

Although Christian churches were initially persecuted by the state, they demonstrated Christianity to be a wholesome alternative to the previous pagan state religions. Many of the local churches eventually formed synods with bishops, and these grew into a catholic (international) organization, despite the split that formed the Eastern catholic churches. The Western, or Roman Catholic, Church became the state church of many nations in Europe and the Americas. It became economically independent and politically powerful. In some places, the church ruled the state; in most it was untouchable by the state. Regardless of how historical accounts are read as to origins or the current situation, it remains that the Roman Catholic Church sought for centuries to make itself the established church wherever it could and that being the state church was the norm.

Such a relation to the state was unacceptable in democratic America. Despite what some, especially in the Vatican would like, the Roman Catholic Church is just one of the many recognized religious bodies in this country and no one is tempted to think it to be here the established church.

We eventually came even to understand that a Catholic layman could serve as president and both "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" and also "unto God the things that are God's" (e.g., Matthew 22:21). The Roman Catholic Church has not attempted to dictate to our government, and Catholic clerics and laity are genuinely American.

Despite its largely political disinterest within America, Catholics in many regions became religiously parochial and culturally provincial. Priests and especially bishops came to feel they were a law-unto-themselves on those matters they subjectively and unilaterally consider to be religious. Some have a tendency to be almost totalitarian and consider everything within their exclusive jurisdiction.

They see sexual behavior of its clergy to be entirely a moral and spiritual issue, and it appears that it never occurred to them that sexual misbehavior is addressed by criminal law as well as canon law. However understandable it surely is that this church did not want to "air its dirty linen in public" and however responsible it is for them to "clean up our own mess," no private body has exclusive authority on such matters. As a matter of fact, the Catholic Church has done a tragically miserable job of it. It is almost a complete failure, and it very much needs the help of law enforcement and the judicial system.

In terms of Jesus' instructions to his disciples, this church must continue to discipline its priests in a moral and pastoral manner. However, bishops must recognize that violation of secular laws is one of those things that belongs to "Caesar" (the state) and the legal response must be turned over to the state. Without abdicating pastoral responsibility for its members who also have become its victims, the church must allow the state to protect them as citizens and to prosecute the priests as citizens.

The Roman Catholic Church is not the state church of the United States. Its officials, especially those in the Vatican, need to sort through all its presumptions and rid themselves once and for all of every remnant attitude of an established church or as being above the law.

Dr. Wallace Alcorn's column appears in the Herald on Mondays