Pope Francis should be doing more than praying these days.

Only if he follows the wisdom of Spanish song writer Joan Manuel Serrat, who, when paying homage to poet Antonio Machado, wrote that there are extreme moments in life, so catastrophic and hopeless, “que de nada nos sirve rezar” (even praying is not even enough).

To hear PA Attorney General Josh Shapiro state with no hesitation that his office will be relentless in their continued investigations of cases of abuse against children, and giving the public a hotline to call and continue denouncing these actions, must be sobering enough for the Catholic leaders— from here all the way to Rome.

This is becoming a call to action to save the institution from further erosion of the trust of the faithful. According to a resident of Philadelphia, abused by a priest in his native Chile, the church may be “on borrowed time."

This is becoming a call to action to save the institution from further erosion of the trust of the faithful. According to a resident of Philadelphia, abused by a priest in his native Chile, the church may be “on borrowed time."

One thousand cases were uncovered by a Grand Jury in the State of Pennsylvania, in the United States, and 300 priests were identified by victims as perpetrators of the most hideous crime a man dressed in religious robes could commit: the sexual abuse of a minor, who is therefore traumatized for life as a consequence of such a cruel abuse of power.

Picture the pain of a Catholic parent who trusted to their beloved institution their own children for guidance and care, only to be inflicted such a humiliation by those same who administer the communion at the altar.

"You are the physicians of the soul and yet, with rare exceptions, you have been transformed, in some cases, into murderers of the soul, into murderers of the faith," a survivor of these abuses screamed in pain three weeks ago in Rome, at the summit hosted by Pope Francis to hear out the victims,  as reported by NPR.

Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean who now lives in Philadelphia and a victim of Chilean priest Fernando Karadima, put it this way to the prestigious national news organization:

"Raping a child has been a crime in the first century, in the Middle Ages, and now and it will be in future (...) I don't find any excuse to not change radically, because the church is on borrowed time right now," he said.