Scandal

According to The Times:

The Right Rev Richard Chartres, the Anglican Bishop of London, lamented the blight of the abuse scandal and its impact on Christian witness in his sermon at St Paul’s Cathedral yesterday.

Scandals, though, really ought to happen in the church and really ought to be a stumbling block to faith, that's what scandal means, etymologically.

Greek skandalon meaning trap became Latin scandalum meaning stumbling block. The idea was that when a Christian priest was caught doing something naughty that was a stumbling block in bringing people to the faith.

Oddly, the Koine Greek skandalizein could mean to be offended or to fall away, which is exactly what Jesus predicts the twelve disciples will do over Easter in Mark 14v27. When the Last Supper has been eaten:

And Jesus said to them, 'You will all fall away [skandalizein]; for it is written, "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered."

So it is meet and right and our bounden duty to be religiously scandalised in this holy season, it is a way of displaying our discipleship.

And the cock crowed a second time.

By popular demand