The search for counseling, the passionate espousal of family values and the ostentatious embrace of religion may all come into play. (Who can forget the scenes of post-Lewinsky Bill Clinton, Bible in hand?) A little bit of court-imposed public service may draw sympathy. Then the moment passes and someone else’s public penance begins. There will never be a shortage of high-profile peccadilloes to titillate the check-out lines.

I believe there should be something more required not just of these people, but for them. Many of these celebrities might do great good. But they need to be removed from the atmosphere of adulation and the cocoon of sycophants that surrounds them. They need to get in touch with different societies than the ones they know – worlds of simplicity and honesty, pain and endurance. And they need to see themselves much more clearly than the lens of any camera can show them.

There are different ways to make such a voyage of self-discovery, not all of them requiring movement across the map. But I would suggest a literal pilgrimage, one of many days or weeks unaccompanied by cameras, as one very good way to begin both a process of repentance and discovery.

Just how powerful the experience can be struck me a few days ago when I was reporting in Lourdes, the small city in southern France where it is claimed a peasant girl had repeated visions of the Virgin Mary in 1858. I was there writing a Newsweek article on the enormous increase in the number of pilgrims throughout Europe and in the United States over the last 25 years: people who may be searching for miracles in some cases, but even more often are searching in themselves.

For a skeptical Protestant like me, the souvenir shops and Marian idolatry at Lourdes might be off-putting. But to be surrounded by so many people who believe so deeply, to feel their need and to see both their suffering and hope, is tremendously moving. It is the kind of experience that changes lives, giving real meaning to penance and the forgiveness of sin.