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April 25, 2002 8:45 a.m. Grease the Guillotine We all need the Catholics to clean house.

he buggery crisis in the Catholic Church has been massively and expertly dissected by commentators Catholic and otherwise, and many members of the latter tribe now watch the proceedings with intense interest and hope. We assume that in the fullness of time there will be indictments and beheadings (not literal, unfortunately), and if that fails there is always Final Judgment, which we further assume is unimpeded by such inefficiencies as legal counsel, habeas corpus, an appeals process, and time off for good behavior.

Meantime, the scandal inspires various contemplations — cultural, theological, and cosmic. First off, the uproar indicates that some traditional moral standards still hold sway with most Americans. While there truly is such a thing as pedophilia chic, which seems to have infected some priests, one of whom famously stated that it is "the children who seduce the adults," for most people the idea of a male priest preying on younger male parishioners is the stuff of which jail terms should be made.

There also seems to be a widely held belief that those who knew about these predations, and protected the perpetrators, are guilty of conspiracy and are thus worthy of some type of lashing, at the very least removal from office. All of which, as they say on the Rosie show, is very judgmental. But sometimes nothing else will do. Indeed, the ferocity with which these judgments are made, across the cultural array, suggests that Americans have been looking for a good target for moral shelling and now that they have one they're very happy to bounce the rubble, again and again.

This is one of the rare times when younger Americans have seen society embrace a traditional moral consensus. They never knew the time when the vast majority of citizens took their cues, at least publicly, from the Old and/or New Testament. One simply didn't argue, for instance, that homosexuality was in any sense morally equal with heterosexuality. Quite the contrary. The OT cure for sexual license of any type was a shower of stones. New Testament believers noted their Messiah considered it a sin to even think of having sex with another man's wife. One could draw but one reasonable conclusion as to how He would view a dalliance between Peter and Paul.

All of that has been swept away, very quickly and dramatically. Recent stories indicate that a prime candidate for a leading job at Stanford University was disqualified because of his traditional sexual views, which were based on his religious beliefs. This fellow wasn't trying out for a job at the English Department; he wanted to be a football coach. The Boy Scouts lose funding from the United Way because they adhere to their sexual traditions. In general, anyone who fails to address the subject in the proper tones and terms is rewarded with an instant diagnosis of being phobic — that is, mentally unstable. One is reminded of the good old days when dissenters from the official Soviet line were deemed insane.

Those who see a Divine Comedy at work in all things human can only sit and marvel. Moral codes that have been in effect for thousands of years, and which are widely assumed (in America, at least) to have come from On High are amended by transitory scribes who take their cues from more mundane sources — various impulses, glands, intuitions, pamphlets. Their revisions are given great weight — increasingly, the weight of law. Those prone to despair over these developments find little cause for cheer, other than in news that a killer asteroid is set to strike the Earth in 870 years or so.

Meantime, the Catholic Church weighs its options, and perhaps greases its guillotine. Let us hope so. While there will be side debates about celibacy and whether or not priestesses would prey on girls at the same rate as men prey on boys, it seems certain that if heads don't roll over this scandal there are going to be a lot more Catholics crowding the trout streams and fairways on Sunday mornings. That will not be good for the church, and those outside the tradition will suffer as well. In the spirit of ecumenical harmony, let us hope for a vast and brutal shearing.

— Dave Shiflett is coauthor of Christianity on Trial.