In this big and mean world, it's hard to hold on to your beliefs when all around are losing theirs and blaming it on you. It's also hard to believe in people. They are fallible. They let you down. And when good people do bad things, they are punished, often severely, and you wonder a) how could this wonderful person do such a horrible thing and b) why can't we do as the Bible says and forgive them? I've been running these thoughts for about a week now, in the harsh shadow of the public humiliation and downfall of Father Joe LeClair, once beloved priest in Ottawa, now inmate 54601 (or what ever number) at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre. This case has haunted me, as it has many others, since the popular priest was first accused by the Ottawa Citizen of stealing a mountain of cash from his parishioners and throwing it around the Casino Lac Leamy in an apparent drunken stupor. It wasn't his cash; he knew it and he didn't care. His crime started small...
More than a million served!