Re: Abbe Pierre's gratutious public confession
I think the writer suggested it was his way of trumpeting his
pet reforms for the Church, starting with married priests, for instance.
The old man fell through the liberal trapdoor most "social-activist" priests get caught into. From thoroughly laudable causes to help the "least of My brethren", they forget that their mission as priests is primarily to strengthen and propagate the faith, not to redress material ills on earth.
From there, it's a small step to advocating other liberal issues that are clearly against the Magisterium of 2000 years such as married priests, homosexual unions and the like. And in today's media-oriented world, it's easy to make waves by being an iconoclast, as the media love nothing better than to publicize anyone who "takes on" the Establishment, especially if the target is the Catholic Church!
The liberal-activist priests become so convinced they alone are right that the overweening force of their self-conviction does not make them see that 1)they are, in fact, advocating elements from other religions; and 2)if someone really finds the Church teaching and practices on some issues intolerable and abhorrent, it is dishonest, to say the least, to remain Catholic, much less a Catholic priest, and be in open defiance of, or in pitched battle against, the Church (and yes, of its "Establishment", because every institution must obviously be run by its Establishment, not by renegades).