"The problems of our own making... born from the sins within the Church" A Reading of Benedict XVI's Admission of the Crisis of the Church's Corporate Identity.

No less than Pope Benedict XVI has admitted of "sins born from within the Church" that "we see today in a truly terrifying way." A theological-ethical reading of such sins would uncover at least three unresolved issues, namely: the wide gap between Church teachings and its laws, the conflicting accounts of authority in the Church, and the hegemony of the clerical ethos. Further analysis would show that the roots of such issues go down deep into the "ways of being church" that we have inherited from the pre-Vatican II era. The current crisis could not be transformed into a kairos by a mere restoration of such ways. In fact, it would only make the Church's present sins more terrifying than they now are. What is at stake is the future of our corporate identity as the body of Christ in a world very different from ages past. And much would depend on how the whole church, particularly the episcopal college, would make innovative institutional and systemic changes commensurate to the papal admission of guilt and according to the vision of renewal set forth by the Second Vatican Council. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]