Two breaking news stories on the Catholic Church this morning

In the first one, Priest calls for pope's resignation from CNN "the Rev. James Scahill called in a sermon last weekend for the pope to resign over the church's sexual abuse scandal."

Good for him. I doubt he'll be the last.

"'If he can't take the consequences of being truthful on this matter, his integrity should lead him, for the good of the church, to step down and to have the conclave of cardinals elect a pope with the understanding that the elected pope would be willing to take on this issue, not just in promise,' Scahill said."

"His church has received more than 100 emails and dozens of calls, of which only two were negative, Sister Betty Braughan said."

More:

"'The church took action after years of sexual abuse only because it had been exposed through the media,' Scahill said."

"Although he has received great support from his parishioners, he admits it has been hard to speak out against the church and the pope."

"'This has not been a healthy thing for me. It's a lot of stress, but I believe the truth needs to be spoken, and I believe the people want to hear the truth and [that] they are sick of the smoke and mirror approach.'"

Indeed, we are all--believers and unbelievers, both sick of the smoke and mirror approach.

Secondly, also from CNN, is this, too:

"Most Americans -- and most American Catholics -- think Pope Benedict XVI has done a bad job of dealing with the problem of sexual abuse by Catholics priests, according to a new national poll."

"CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey results released Friday also indicate that recent revelations about that matter have hurt the pope's standing with the public."

"Fifty-nine percent of American Catholics questioned in the poll have a favorable view of the pope, down 19 points from February. Among all Americans, the slippage is even greater: from 59 percent in February to just 35 percent today."

"According to the survey, 56 percent of U.S. Catholics disapprove of how Pope Benedict XVI has dealt with the problem of sexual abuse committed by priests; only about one in three Catholics has a positive view of how he has dealt with that subject. An even larger number -- 74 percent -- disapproves of how the church overall has handled that matter."

So it's bad and getting worse for the Pope. Unfortunately, it's not a big surprise. You can't shove something like all these cases of abuse under a figurative rug and expect they'll go away.

I don't think anyone can, as yet, predict quite how this will turn out and how far this will push Pope Benedict.

Side note to the Pope: Happy 83rd birthday. Enjoy.