Is the catholic church a force for good?

[EGross]

Catholic sex abuse cases
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/07...60367.html
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/20...rches.html

"This is what the Church says"
Exactly, what it says. The church does not promote child molestation nor does it officially condone such actions, and yet such actions have been covered up on a large scale. Is this consistent with church teachings? No. Hence my confusion over why it would be done.

Would it help alleviate your confusion to learn that there are atheists and pedophiles hiding in the clergy doing stuff with a clear conscience because, unlike real Christian priests who do think God
exists and punishes such sins, those atheists and pedophiles DONT CARE WHAT GOD THINKS.

Would you like to explain which Athiests promoted and perverted the teaching of the Church by starting the Crusades or inquisitions? Or the Church that sought to canonize Queen Isabella, the patron saint of the Inquisition? Did not a real Christian seek such a thing?

Or to include Protestants, was Martin Luther a real Christian when he wrote "The Jews and their Lies" and commanded his followers to attack and beat the heritic Jew? And those who obeyed, where they not true Christians?

Or were all of these Athiests? Was Pope "Pius" the XII an Athiest?

In other words. And while you may say that there are those who do bad because they do not believe in a God, I would dispute that and say that there are those who ARE believing Christians who DO believe in a God and demonstrate that morality does not come from the Church, but that humanity can be moral without its hypocricy.

Like the Christian who has a lapse and lusts after his neighbor's wife, even though he doesn't act upon it and is now doomed because the thought police God knows what he was thinking. Maybe he will get 10 minutes in Hell as a punishment. Who knows?

At that moment that he had that lapse, was he no longer a Christian? Was he suddenly an Athiest?

No, he was a Christian, and what he did harmed nobody (having a thought), but if he is a true Catholic, the guilt will set in and he will need to atone.

And I would suggest to you further that your perception that "not a real Christian" (in place of Athiest, since I doubt you know the truth of another's beliefs) did those things, then how do you explain the segments in the seminaries themselves, (something I can personally attest to), who will, as we have read recently, eventually will rise in status and have important roles in the Church, and get caught up in a male prostitute scandle?

These are Christians, not athiests. They just compartmentalize their God as a bit of convenience.

Power corrupts.