The backbreaker

[Nihilist Virus]

Well, He COULD have said "abracadabra", but He didn't. And you're right, God COULD just say, "abracadabra" and forgive us all (thereby demonstrating perfect mercy), but He won't because God is also "Perfect Justice", and perfect justice demands payment for our sins against an all-Holy God.

How to handle this? Well, at the cross, perfect Mercy and perfect Justice meet. We are forgiven and God's justice is satisfied. We could not pay the price, so God paid it for us, and He did do willingly.

It seems odd that this bothers you for some reason.

Does perfect justice include murdering David's son?

Indeed. The bishops erred in thinking that homosexuality could be "cured" (this began in the 50's when less was understood), and they lacked the courage to out these gay priests by turning them over to the police. This was a huge mistake. Finally, I also think that Satan played a hand in this by infiltrating the Church with bishops who were/are sympathetic to the homosexual agenda. I am not alone in this belief.

They erred in protecting criminals.  Stop shifting the focus.

You make a good point. The scandal compounds the problem dramatically. However, we have to stay clear that the sins of individual priests and bishops does not diminish the authority of the Church itself. Jesus told his disciples to obey the teachings of the Jewish leaders (to whom God had given legitimate authority), but he also warned them not to DO what those leaders did because "they do not practice what they preach." Jesus understood that our human leaders will always fall short of the perfection we'd like for them to have. After all, they are, like all of us, only human.

Yet God appoints the pope.

SUMMATION:
There's no direct connection, and as Pope, he moved to prosecute more aggressively...that's not exactly a stinging denunciation, NV.

No direct connection.  Meanwhile thousands of rapists in the church get off scott free and in your mind the pope is completely innocent.

And these bombshells from your article:

An extensive 2007 investigation by the Associated Press showed that sexual abuse of children in U.S. schools was "widespread," and most of it was never reported or punished. And in Portland, Ore., last week, a jury reached a $1.4 million verdict against the Boy Scouts of America in a trial that showed that since the 1920s, Scouts officials kept "perversion files" on suspected abusers but kept them secret.

"We don't see the Catholic Church as a hotbed of this or a place that has a bigger problem than anyone else," Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, told Newsweek. "I can tell you without hesitation that we have seen cases in many religious settings, from traveling evangelists to mainstream ministers to rabbis and others."

Part of the issue is that the Catholic Church is so tightly organized and keeps such meticulous records -- many of which have come to light voluntarily or through court orders -- that it can yield a fairly reliable portrait of its personnel and abuse over the decades. Other institutions, and most other religions, are more decentralized and harder to analyze or prosecute.

And this:

5. The crisis will compel U.S. Catholics to leave the church.

When the initial revelations of widespread sexual abuse by clergy emerged in 2002, many believed that Catholics would abandon the church en masse, or at least send the institution toward insolvency by withholding donations. But then, as now, American Catholics turned out to be an unpredictable lot. Though critical of the bishops and the Vatican, Catholics tend to love their local parishes and priests. And even if they don't heed all church mandates, they don't easily shed all the cultural and sacramental markers of their faith.

A 2007 Pew survey of the religious landscape in America found that among Catholics who had left the church, the abuse crisis ranked low on the list of reasons -- well behind church teachings on homosexuality, the role of women, abortion and contraception. And a 2008 poll by Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate showed that even the bishops had enjoyed a rebound in approval, with satisfaction with the hierarchy growing from 58 percent in 2004 to 72 percent in 2008.

Wow.

Confirmation of just about everything I have ever said on the Priest Scandal all in one place.

Thanks, NV! 


And btw - notice the top reasons why people leave the Catholic Church...they supported:

Gay Agenda
Feminist Agenda
Abortion on demand
Contraception

Hmmmm...disputes over actual doctrine don't seem to appear anywhere in the list. People leave because the Church says "no" to the sins they want to enjoy.

No disputes in doctrine. Meanwhile I proved that the crucifixion was pointless.