When a group of senior monks in Thailand's highest governing body of clerics faced corruption scrutiny earlier this month, there was no public shock, only a stamp of approval. That says volumes about public discontent with the clergy.
Legal investigations without fear nor favour would be a move in the right direction. But cleaning up the corrupt system takes more than defrocking the guilty and sending them to jail.
To restore public trust in the clergy, temple donations must be transparent and open to independent auditing. The government must also make temples stand on their own feet. No more financial support; no more privileges.
Sanitsuda Ekachai is former editorial pages editor, Bangkok Post.
In addition, the clergy's feudalistic governing body must be revamped to allow community oversight in a more democratic structure. In short, there's no shortcut to overcoming the crisis of faith.
Pol Lt Col Pongporn Pramsaneh, the gutsy, no-nonsense head of the National Office of Buddhism (NOB), must be credited for taking the first step to punish high-ranking monks at the top end of the corruption food chain.
On April 11, the NOB chief filed corruption charges against three members of the Sangha Supreme Council and two other senior monks for alleged embezzlement of state funds to support religious schools.
Temple corruption is an open secret. But it's the first time that official allegations have reached the Sangha Supreme Council members.
What worries the clergy is there's no stopping Mr Pongporn. Last week, he filed similar corruption charges with the National Anti-Corruption Commission against seven more temples which also involve heavy-weight elders with extensive networks of supporters.
Angry protests erupted. Proxy groups insisted the NOB chief overstepped his authority and emphasised that all clerical misconduct must be handled by the clergy only, not by laypeople.
Echoing the Sangha Council elders' reprimand of Mr Pongporn at a recent meet, they also attacked Mr Pongporn for tarnishing the image of the clergy and "destroying Buddhism".
Has it occurred to these proxy groups and their masters that they are the crux of the problem? That people are extremely fed up with endless streams of sex and corruption scandals in the clergy?
The elders' long record of ineptitude is not limited to their inability to punish corrupt and wayward monks. The clergy as a whole is out of touch with the modern world, refusing to modernise the feudalistic system because it's the very source of its power, privileges and perks.
They want Mr Pongporn booted. They succeeded in doing that last year when the newly appointed NOB chief dared rock the clerical boat by suing former NOB bosses and monks for working hand-in-glove to embezzle temple restoration funds.
That he was quickly reinstated, only one month after he was fired, shows his strong political support from higher up. If this support remains, it's unlikely the legal proceedings against alleged corrupt monks will be halted despite the elders' outcry. At least for now.
There's a long legal battle ahead. Don't trust the defendants with deep political networks of their own to take it lying down.
Even if Mr Pongporn can fulfil his mission, temple corruption will continue as long as the clergy remains a closed, unaccountable society which breeds nepotism, corruption and abuse of power.
At present, the Sangha Act gives abbots sole control over temple assets and donations. Although they are required to work with temple committees to audit donations, abbots retain the last say and act as if they own the temples and public donations themselves. More often than not, the benefits are secretly shared with committee members, thanks to a lack of independent auditing of temples' accounting systems.
According to research by Asst Prof Nada Chansom of the National Institute of Development Administration (Nida), public donations to 37,075 temples around the country amount to 100-120 billion baht per year. This explains why monks are fighting tooth and nail to control temple donations.
So far, every attempt to regulate temple donations and assets transparently has failed following fierce protests from the clergy.
Although financial transparency is a must in Sangha reform, good intentions will lead nowhere if the government insists on adding bureaucratic layers to state funds for temples in the belief that they can get rid of corruption loopholes.
As in the highly publicised corruption scandals concerning state funds for the poor, the misappropriation of financial support for religious schools and temple restoration are proof that corruption is always easy in a top-down, autocratic system.
Furthermore, many priceless examples of temple architecture, murals, and other religious and historical assets have been destroyed by the abbots who have no clues about cultural preservation but view themselves as owners who can do anything they see fit with their temples.
That is why Sangha reform must go beyond fixing the Sangha Act to regulate temple assets and money.
When a closed system is the root cause of corruption and abuse of power, transparency and accountability must be established to open up the system. This can be done by decentralising the clergy's power structure and allowing community participation in temple management with external auditing and monitoring to ensure transparency.
And stop state patronage. The temple donations of more than 100 billion baht a year are more than enough to support monks' education and other temple matters -- if monks stop siphoning off temple money to enrich themselves.
Furthermore, state patronage and financial help only spoils the clergy. It deepens the culture of dependency and stops the clergy from shaping up to regain public trust. Long accustomed to being pampered, it acts like a cry baby when its privileges and perks are put at risk.
At present, the majority of monks do not care about communities because their privileges come from the power centre in Bangkok.
They know very well that as long as they can personally please their superiors up in the feudalistic hierarchy, their antics will never be caught by the weak system.
This must change. To reform the clergy, we must return temples to communities.
It won't be easy. We can expect fierce resistance from the clergy. More important, however, is the resistance from their political alliances whose status quo also depends on support from the clergy.
Without Sangha reform, however, the clergy will be left behind and grow irrelevant to modern Thais.
Don't blame foreign influences. Don't blame other religions for undermining the Thai clergy. Blame yourself. Blame your clinging on to money and power -- exactly the opposite of what the Buddha teaches.
The Supreme Patriarch, like his predecessor, is a humble monk who lives the Buddhist teaching. They are proof that good monks at the top cannot fight the larger, closed system that breeds corruption and abuse of power.
Monks must return to the teachings. The clerical system must be open, democratic and accountable. There's no other way to restore public trust and undo the crisis of faith.