What Would Mother Teresa Do?

Re “Priests Begin Public Penance in O.C.,” Dec. 19:

To show “penance” and “contrition” for the action of their peer priests, 16 clerics gathered in front of a crowd of reporters and in the glare of TV lights to perform such acts as:

Reading to children.

Giving up the use of a car for a day.

Working as a janitor’s assistant at a school.

There were other suggested acts, such as wearing clerical attire to a shopping mall where the so-garbed priest could “encounter hostile stares and comments.”

Said one priest: “The pain of our negligence or blindness is very palpable here.”

While the context of his comment was [about] how these priests were blind to the sexual activities of predator priests, I have to comment on their current blindness and arrogance in such insignificant acts.

In her daily life, Mother Teresa’s acts were of such significance that these priests should be ashamed at their presumption that their actions could be viewed with anything short of total disdain.

I am not nor have ever been a Catholic and am not currently a member of any church.

However, the actions of the Catholic bishops and such priests have injured and continue to injure the wider community.

Chuck McVey

Huntington Beach