It seems you have Dr. Thorne's number and that of some others while you are at it. I try to avoid these controversies because we all, Catholics, Reformed, Jews, other conservatives need to be able to politically march, arm in arm, whenever we can.
The endless attack on priests makes it clear that there is literally NOTHING the Church could do that would satisfy those who, lacking rational arguments against her, resort continually to the sexual scandals of priests involved inappropriately with children or teens (or anyone really given their common vow of celibacy) short of the Church itself closing up shop and turning itself over to the Reformed or the atheist/agnostic set and you and I know from Our Savior that such will never happen.
The fact is that each and every clergyman: Catholic, Reformed, Jewish or otherwise has fallen far short of the glory of God and short of what God had hoped for each clergyman. Ditto the laity.
Time was when, as a lawyer, I represented pro-lifers in large numbers in your home state when I lived there. I never pestered a single one to join me in my Catholicism. Most of those represented were out-of-staters and many non-Catholics. I represented each to the court individually according to his or her respective faith and beliefs, not mine.
The conservative movement needs all of its adherents. In our capacity as conservatives, we cannot afford to be divided by our faith commitments or religious beliefs. That is not how America works. That does not mean that we should not hold fiercely to our Catholic Faith on Sunday and all week long. We must grant to our fellow Christians not of our fold the same right. And to folks of other faiths as well. It seems a bit schizophrenic but we can all manage it here.
We can all point to instances in which our ancestors suffered at the hands of the ancestors of others. That was generally quite long ago. I am willing to give it up. Others must decide for themselves.
This year marks 50 years that I have been involved in conservative activity. It has given me the opportunity for leadership and to get to know Bill Buckley and Frank Meyer and to meet Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan and to fight Lowell Weicker and to help Joe Lieberman against Weicker. Only one third of those six were Catholic and Frank Meyer was baptized on his deathbed.
Our Faith is the most wonderful thing on Earth but our political movement is also well worth our efforts even though, as it must be, its membership is not mostly Catholic. In Connecticut, I found myself allied with agnostics, atheists, a retired Jewish college professor of Classics, a fallen away Mormon, numerous Indifferent Catholics, a Unitarian woman, more than one hard core Evangelical, a hard core black Pentecostal and a wide variety of fallen away Catholics and many still faithful Catholics. And that is without getting into the Rescuers' backgrounds or the gun owners or the Taxpayers movement people and I am confident that I have forgotten hundreds of others.
We lost some fights but we won more often than we lost even in Connecticut.
God bless you and yours!
Thank-you for your comments, God Bless.
All that I was trying to do is do some much needed “gentle but firm correcting”, in other words, by pointing out that it was NOT all Catholic priests who abused children and to end by extention, the Catholic bashing. If Dr. Thorne comes around to realize what he has been doing is wrong and accept the much need gentle but firm correcting, all the better. If he does not, no great lost on my part, I did what I could best do.
All that was presented is the need to realize that the vast majority of Catholics were very much offended deeply during the priest sex abuse scandel and all that was done was simply a call to put that difficult period behind us and go forward to what needs to be done.