(December 15, 2016 at 4:03 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: The difference is though, that the Islamic terrorists kill because they believe it's what Allah wants them to do. They think what they're doing is good, and they are motivated by their religious beliefs. But the priests and other clergy involved in the sex abuse scandal either doing it themselves or by covering it up, were not motivated by their religious beliefs. They were motivated by their own gratification and their own selfishness and disregard for the victims in order to save face. What they did was very very much contrary to fundamental Catholic teaching. They acted against the Church's moral code, not in what they believed was in accordance with it.
I understand that to some degree, but at the end of the day this is associated with Catholicism now because, firstly, it was almost unique to the Catholic Church, and secondly it was swept under the carpet by The Pope to save face. That did not help, at all. When there was a massive cover up, rather than a call by the Pope to find the priests responsible, strip them of their position and have them sent to jail, it just made the whole Church look shady.
Simply saying "it's against the Church's moral code" is the absolute minimum I expect from practitioners of the faith. You are rightly outraged that the scandal happened, not because you're Catholic, not because you're practicing, but because you are a moral woman in your own right. I'm simply saying turn that outrage into something productive, take it further than "this isn't my religion". Actually rally Catholics to collectively condemn and call the clergy to justice, and maybe then people will start to see the Catholic faith in a different light.
"Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the road, and then getting hit by an airplane" - sarcasm_only
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie