Words to Live by – from Catholic Tradition

Bad leaders in the Church and in Society are a Punishment for Sin

We are suffering from bad leaders in the Church and civil society as Divine retribution for the sins of people in the human element of the Church and in civil society. 

Here is one way that St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Church, teaches this truth:

To deserve to secure from God the blessing of a good ruler, the people must desist from sin, for it is by Divine permission that wicked men receive power to rule as a punishment for sin, as the Lord says by the Prophet Osee [13:11]: “I will give you a king in my wrath” and it is said in Job [34:30] that he “makes a man that is a hypocrite to reign for the sins of the people.” Sin must therefore be done away with in order that the scourge of tyrants may cease.

St. Thomas, On Kingship, ch.7 (emphasis added).

Catholic Candle note: Of course, the fact that God punishes people for their sins by giving them bad rulers, does not exonerate those bad rulers from their own culpability for their sins.  God is merely using the sins of bad rulers as a tool to punish the sins of the people.