Pope Francis is humanely concerned with over a dozen man-made problems that even school kids would wonder why the world doesn’t do something about: plastics littering the oceans, deadly drug gangs in Mexico, insane wars sparked by the pride of men, murderous Christian persecutions in Muslim nations, materialistic culture and wasted food and clothing, irrational national policies for nuclear weapons, abortion and disregard for human life, inhumane conditions for migrants, human sex trafficking and slavery, gun control and the random slaughter of innocent people, polluted drinking water sickening the masses, and so on.

None of the above issues is within the Pope’s ability to change. One issue, however, is his responsibility: The destructive behavior of sexually active and predatory priests. Today the Pope could issue a mandatory order that all homosexually-active priests (and heterosexually-active priests, where that’s a problem) must resign immediately. But he won’t, even if solely for practical reasons. If the corrupt priests obeyed, in some areas half of priests would be out of a job. Diocesan offices would be half-staffed and many parishes would have no pastor.

But only then would the Church’s waters be detoxed. Only then would the laity be refreshed and able to campaign against all the lesser moral crimes noted above.

The Pope’s one solitary concern should be to purify the pollution streaming out of Rome.