The news media continue to report the sad and tragic facts of what the Pope has called the "grave scandal" of dozens of priests implicated in sex-abuse cases around the country. In a most unusual pre-Easter message to priests, the Pope acknowledged the incidents that have rocked the Roman Catholic Church. In this public address he issued a charge to priests around the world to "be more committed to the pursuit of holiness." Was this a call to "Christian Perfection" from the Pope?

The most distinctive and misunderstood element in John Wesley's theology was the idea of Christian Perfection -- "Loving God with all your heart, mind and soul." Holiness to Wesley was not absolute perfection, making a person infallible or immune to error. Perfection meant perfect love. Wesley saw perfection as a process, a pursuit, rather than a state of static perfection. According to Albert Outler, "Holiness and disciplined love came together in his [Wesley's] mind."

In a sermon on perfection, John Wesley explains how Christians are not perfect (not free from ignorance, mistake, infirmities or temptations), and in what sense they are perfect (they do not commit sin, do not continue in sin, are made free from outward sin, are freed from evil thoughts and tempers and are delivered from inward sin such as pride, anger and self-will). Both John and Charles Wesley believed the experience of perfect love could be known. John believed it could be known instantly; Charles said it could be known only rarely and gradually.

John Wesley's focus on perfection or holiness may well relate to his Oxford "conversion" as reported in A Plain Account of Christian Perfection: "In the year 1725 ... I resolved to dedicate all my life to God, all my thoughts and words and actions, being thoroughly convinced there was no medium, but that every part of my life (not some only) must either be a sacrifice to God, or to myself; that is, in effect, to the devil. ..."

The Pope's pleading call to priests around the world sounds very much like the call John Wesley issued to his preachers and to the people called Methodists around the world.