THE REFORMATION ROLLS ON...:

Another way of looking at both the choir scandal and Vatileaks, therefore, is that they are the birth pains of reform.

"Birth pains" is a Biblical image, drawn from Matthew 24 where Jesus discusses the end-times: "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom," he says. "There will be famines and earthquakes from place to place."

"All these," he says, "are the beginning of the birth pains ... but the one who perseveres to the end will be saved."

Without going too far down the road of apocalyptic speculation, the wisdom contained in the passage is that periods of transition are often marked by great tumult, but the upheaval can be a herald of something better to come.

No doubt, it's frustrating for many Catholics that media outlets have given great prominence to reports of scandal, without equal emphasis on the fact that someone in the Church unearthed the failures in an effort to make things right.

In other words, the coverage is often all Good Friday, no Easter Sunday.

The plain fact of the matter, however, is that the harder the Church tries to confront its failures, the more ugly truths are going to surface, which likely will mean more bad news cycles. For people who don't follow such stories closely, it may seem all this is terribly damaging to the Church's image, but insiders will realize it's the price of change.

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