Nixon-esque Pope Must Convert

The Catholic Church’s current scandal bears an uncanny resemblance to Watergate. What at first looks like an isolated crime has slowly escalated, ultimately revealing corruption at the highest levels of authority. The pope isn’t going to resign—the church isn’t a democracy, and it needn’t bow to popular opinion—but he may need to do something even more drastic, argues Timothy Shriver in the Washington Post .

A "culture that placed defense of the structure over the defense of children is broken, pure and simple,” Shriver argues. So it’s time to change that culture into “one that is centered on loving God.” The bishops and even the pope must undergo a full-blown conversion, and come to “trust the spirit that blows where it will, to abandon their defensiveness of their positions and trust only the gospel.” That’s harder than resigning, but it’s the only way to survive "Altargate." (More Pope Benedict XVI stories.)