That's the question Peggy Noonan asks in her op-ed piece in today's Wall Street Journal. She writes, in part:
In a way, the Vatican lives outside time and space. The verities it speaks of and stands for are timeless and transcendent. For those who work there, bishops and cardinals, it can become its own reality. And when those inside fight for what they think is the life of the institution, they feel fully justified in fighting any way they please. . . .
But in the past few decades, they not only fought persons—"If you were loyal you'd be silent"—they fought information.
What they don't fully understand right now—what they can't fully wrap their heads around—is that the information won.
The information came in through the cracks, it came in waves, in newspaper front pages, in books, in news beamed to every satellite dish in Europe and America. The information could not be controlled or stopped. The information was that something very sick was going on in the heart of the church.
Once, leaders of the Vatican felt that silence would protect the church. But now anyone who cares about it must come to understand that only speaking, revealing, admitting and changing will save the church.
She's right: that's the only way the church can be saved. But maybe the church isn't worth saving. Maybe it is too morally and spiritually bankrupt. Maybe it should wither up and die, killed by its own leaders.
Sense and Nonsense 