Does not the Bible teach that woman are agents of evil, from Eve "the temptress of Adam" onwards?

Therefore it is morally safer to keep sexual acts in the Catholic all-male priestly family?

Therefore sex with male minors (eg. choirboys) easily available to the Catholic priesthood, is less sinful than sex with grown women?!

Thus justifying 2,000 years of paedophilia, silently shunted between diocese...

'Does not the Bible teach that woman are agents of evil, from Eve "the temptress of Adam" onwards?'

actually the bible teaches those who twist Scripture are evil.

Another abortive comment runner.

Why defend 2,000 years of paedophilia?

Speaking of today's headline http://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-02/george-pell-ballarat-allegations-revelation/12109952

"Two new accusers say George Pell abused them when they were boys in the 1970s"

"For decades, 53-year-old Bernie* kept the secrets of his childhood deeply buried.

As a boy growing up in a Ballarat orphanage in the 1970s, Bernie told the ABC's Revelation program that he was abused on multiple occasions by George Pell, then a priest in the diocese of Ballarat.

For years Bernie was convinced that if he reported the abuse, he would not be believed.

"I would hear Pell's become Bishop," Bernie says.

"Pell's become Archbishop. Pell's become a Cardinal. Who's gonna believe a little boy from a home against that conglomerate? You know against that bloody goliath?"..."

Jesus responded to critics who complained that He socialized with sinners in this way:

“Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent." (Mathew 9:12, Mark 2:17, Luke 5:31-32).

In this way I agree with you Peter, and the tv show, that as the church need to be there for the drunks and drug addicts; the homosexuals, adulterers, and prostitutes; the abused and the abusers; the weak, the vulnerable, the needy; the orphan, widows, homeless, impoverished, and imprisoned. Yes all of these people and more should be welcomed into the church for no other reason then to have mercy and love and be compassionate.

The part to welcome the down trodden including the gay, is half of the point. The other half though is to help people in their sins and struggles, not just to accept their struggles as a positive. We try to help the poor within their struggles and that is kindness. It isn't kindness to praise them for being poor, homeless, or hungry; and do nothing to help them.

Peter - You inspire me to finally have a look at Damascus - a book I received as a Christmas gift 3 months ago.

I appreciate your attempt to match the power of art and the need of continual renewal within human institutions.

But I wonder whether a broader ecclesiology (consider Kevin Giles “What On Earth is the Church?” for example) that recognises the soft places to land within the Body of Christ that already exist (even in what some might consider the most fundamental type places entitled church) has been overshadowed by the ‘need’ for the oldest and most hierarchical structures to be ‘fixed?’