I’m not a Catholic and don’t know why this particular thing was posted. I don’t know that the motive was to create an orgy of Catholic bashing. I’m not willing to have articles suppressed simply because they appear to diminish religious institutions that I respect.
Child abuse is a really, really bad thing and it appears to be a systemic thing within certain organizations. It appears you want to silence the poster and, in my view, that is not good.
Since we don’t seem to be able to shoot the abusers in the head we probably have to agree to honor whatever contractual or minimal Christian obligations that the Church has towards these men while satisfying to the greatest extent possible the claims filed by those abused.
If the Catholic Church in America has to divest itself of every single asset it owns to make this right then it might be of some spiritual benefit to have nothing, own nothing, and be led by shepherds that depend on the charity of congregations that meet in homes, parks, and public buildings. After all, what do we need in this world?
Hope you don’t think this is Catholic bashing. That’s not my intent.
We all know appearances can be deceptive. I would hesitate to reach a moral conclusion on the basis of appearances alone.
For the umpteenth time, I have good reason to know that child abuse was swept under the rug in secular organizations as well as in denominations like the Episcopal Church -- as was other kinds of sexual misbehavior.
Owing partly to that knowledge and partly to what I think is an evident (or, ahem, apparent) eagerness to put forward any evidence suggesting any group which doesn't advocate unrestricted sex between consenting adults in the privacy of their own Times Square MUST be all about weird sexual urges yearning to breathe free and likely to erupt at any moment ... pause to gather second wind ... I would view with great skepticism any conclusion based on appearances about us feelthy papists.
Let's think about this: The feelthy papist Church is a big and populous outfit in the world, and pretty big in the US. If we assumed that child abusers were randomly represents among all clergy of whatever kind, we'd still come up with a BUNCH of Catholic clergy engaged in pedophilia. And while camp counsellors, even Episcopalian Camp counsellors, may not make the evening news when their abuse is discovered (and certainly won't when the denomination sweeps it under the rug) do we REALLY think that our friends in the lamestream media don't find it (and present it as) especially juicy when feelthy papists are involved?
I think the data are extremely difficult to judge.
FWIW
I don't know what is owed the extremely and feloniously sinful elderly. I really just don't know. I suppose, in one sense, we owe even the virtuous little. But how Christians should respond to those among them who have really grossly and horribly failed ... the judgment comes too close to me for me to be clear about allowing them to die homeless and starving. Maybe that's what should happen to those who escape or survive prison. I just don't know.