Clear as mud

In response to the overwhelming outcry after the sex abuse scandal for greater transparency in church governance, the U.S. bishops have decided it's better to meet behind closed doors. So, for about half of their annual meeting in Baltimore--where they will be discussing, among other things, new guidelines for pastoral care to gay and lesbian Catholics, a document on determining just who among the baptized are "worthy" for communion, and an official songbook for liturgies in the United States--the bishops will be safely kept from the watchful eyes of their constituents, that is, the people of God, to whom they are bound in service.

Wrong move, guys. All this is likely to accomplish is a more secretive, self-involved hierarchy, and a more irritated, disenfranchised laity.

Could it be that when the bishops got a taste of transparency--and the accountability that goes along with it--their first instinct was to turn tail and run?