Churches should always practice what they preach

The most valuable possession the church has, something so invaluable it could never be insured, is the trust of its church members and the larger society.

Sure, the church has buildings, steeples, choirs and bands, impressive ministries of compassion, historic prayers and beautiful liturgies. But everything the church has boils down to trust, the same as for every institution. Governments, political parties, salespersons, corporations, not-for-profit organizations and churches stand or fall on the issue of trust.

I reflect on the trust issue in the wake of yet another incident of breach of trust in the Catholic Church, this time precipitated by the publication of leaked internal Vatican documents from very high officials purporting to reveal cronyism, influence peddling, corruption and mismanagement. Some of the documents were personal letters written to Pope Benedict XVI.

The Vatican earlier this week arrested the pope