So, Musket, are you saying that there are no atheists who abuse children? I'm sure the percentage is about the same, between clerics and atheists. So, how can an atheist pass judgment on all Catholics or all clerics because of a minority who are undeniably guilty of abuse?

I don't pretend to speak for the Catholic Church, though the recently-demoted Cardinal Burke seems to think himself more Catholic than the Pope. I can, however, speak from many years of education and experience - and I can document what I say.

Whatever the case, it's unfair to pick out the idiot in a group and then name him as representative of the group as a whole. Where's your logic there? If the guy is talking like an idiot, wouldn't it be better to look to somebody more credible, somebody who is closer to the issue, like the Archbishop of Dublin?

How can you say that Burke is "clearly following the rule book"? Because he wears fancy clothes? And for that matter, how can you say credibly that Burke's legalistic, judgmental interpretation is the way the rules are to be read? And where does it say that every jot and tittle of "the rules" must be followed to the letter by every Catholic? That's the absolutist in you speaking, Musket - the little voice who believes that everybody must live by ideology, because ideology is the only thing you can understand.

Tell me this: whose perspective is closer to that of Pope Francis? - mine, or Burke's?

Of course, Burke was more in line with Benedict and John Paul than I was - but that was another day. Seems to me, then, that there might be room for diversity and a variety of perspectives within the Catholic Church. Maybe we don't all have to think like hateful people like Burke.

But yeah, the right-wing buffoons are a problem, because they won't shut up and because they have a lot of money behind them. So, people listen to them because people listen to the money. Aren't you smart enough not to be taken in by their charade?

Musket: You say that "atheists" this that and the other in equal numbers. You wanna give me an example of that? I am fully aware of the wide range of opinion among atheists. What makes you think that a wide range of opinion among Catholics is impossible?

But what I call "atheist ideologues" are atheists who can see no validity in any school of thought other than their own. Those atheists have a lot in common with each other - and with the most fundamentalist of religious people. Is that what you are - an ideologue who cannot accept diversity of thought?

Your view of Catholicism is narrow, shallow, and purely ideological. That leads me to conclude that your own thinking must be narrow, shallow, and purely ideological. Tolerance and understanding and respect, do not appear to be part of your vocabulary.

-Joe Offer-