"we have allowed institutional structures to become more important than the people those institutions were created to serve."
On the Catholic side of the fence, this is (in large part) what Pope Francis means when he decries "clericalism."
The Catholic Church has arguably done a pretty good job in recent years instituting reforms and putting protections against child sexual abuse in place.
But in the view of many, the effort took far too long, and was inhibited rather than helped by a culture of reverence toward church leaders.
That culture, which Francis calls clericalism, has barely budged. Many Catholics around the world, especially in the United States, say they feel alienated from the Church because they say the Church belongs to a small handful of powerful men, and not to them as followers of Jesus.
The Church is grappling with this fairly unsuccessfully as pews empty out and churches close their doors. Leadership has announced a "synodal process" over the next two years during which lay Catholics and clerics can work together to reform the Church, but many say that at least in the United States it's too little too late.
Evangelical Christians, including Southern Baptists, the denomination I was raised in, don't have exactly the same problems. Ordinary Baptists are not as far removed from their leaders as ordinary Catholics are from their leaders.
However, clericalism is still a cancer. Megachurch pastors, university presidents, and denominational leaders wield a tremendous amount of practical power. They aren't shepherds so much as God's enforcers on Earth.
That sort of culture definitely led to the sex-abuse cover ups, but that's a symptom. Even if the SBC definitively stamps out a culture of hiding abuse, the next existential crisis will be just around the corner unless they also stamp out a culture of worshiping powerful leaders as prophets.
I write all this, by the way, in a spirit of good faith, as a member of a Baptist family and the son and nephew of Baptist ministers who at one time associated closely with some of the most powerful Baptist leaders in the United States.
