thesummerqueen Wrote:There are myriad reasons why I hate the Church as an institution. I don't hate individual people unless they give me many extreme reasons to. I lay blame at the church's door because the blame belongs on the people who committed the crimes. I don't differentiate between religions as far as this goes. Fundamentalist Islam as a religion is horrific as well. So's Scientology. So's a lot of Orthodox Judaism.
Not every Catholic has molested a child. But the CHURCH as an institution allowed it to happen, then covered it up. BLAME, and rightly so, and if you think blame shouldn't be put on the people representing your religion to the rest of the world for all the shit that happened under their command, oh well sweet pea. Tough shit for them and for you. They took a leadership position and this is what they get - it take strong shoulders to bear the burden of being a representative and leader in any sort of movement. Your job as a "shepherd" to your flock is to protect and guide them, yes? See to their well being? How is allowing the rape of innocents in any way "seeing to their well-being?" How is allowing AIDS to run RAMPANT in Africa because of some outmoded belief against the use of condoms "seeing to well-being"?
I'd respond more, but I've wasted enough time at the end of my work day on this. I have to get vendors paid.
Well concerning the molestation of children, the Church did not "allow it to happen." She as an institution does everything she can to stop the molestation of children. It is impractical to act like the Church should be omnipresent in stopping evil. The "cover ups" are not so bad as they sound. People cover up crimes like this for all sorts of reason, not all of which are evil. For one thing there was a belief, due to liberal social sciences, that children molesters could reform if they admitted to the crime and took steps to stop it, this was AGAINST Canon Law, which called for very tough measures against the perpetrator. So the Church had good laws in place which were ignored by bad bishops against this wishes of the Pontiff and majority of the faithful. And further this type of behavior happens every where including public schools which are wholly secular, and atheist in a sense, that God is absent from the decisions. The fact is teachers have sex with 16 year olds et al. all the time, I know there were rumors, that were probably true, in my school and what do people do? Look the other way, a lot of the time, or they put an end to it without getting the media or courts involved. This is typical human behavior, which is wrong, but is not unique to the Church. The Church has done every prafctical thing to stop the abuse. It has a Canon Law that clearly deals with this issue in a good way, and it teaches that such actions send people to an eternal hell. With that said the Bishops et al. who helped cover this stuff have done a grave evil and its a blessing and a curse that the abuse was revealed in such a way because it has led to a recognition that ignoring Canon Law for "the Gospels sake" is wrong. Like the Pope has said, it has brought back the truth that discipline is another form of love. And for this reason some times it is the loving thing to do, to punish someone.
