Well, Mary, I have to say that you're generalizing, which makes it very hard to carry on a discussion with you. I will agree that some modern Catholic songs have lyrics that are silly, but that's certainly not the case with many of them. In fact, many of the most-used hymns have texts that come directly from Scripture.

And yes, some bishops covered up sex abuse, and some priests and bishops were and are guilty of sex abuse. More often the situation was that the bishops did not handle the sex abuse as well as it should have been handled. And the fact of the matter is, nobody has come up with a perfect answer to the problem of sex abuse. Right now, the bishops are in a zero-tolerance crackdown mode, but the trouble with zero-tolerance is that innocent people end up getting punished in the shuffle, and a zero-tolerance policy fails to distinguish between minor indiscretions and major offenses. Yes, the Catholic Church handled the sex abuse scandal badly - but nobody has handled it well.

And you know, even child molestors and Republicans can make reasonable judgments about church music at times.

And, as has been stated before, what usually happens is that "Danny Boy" and other secular songs are prohibited within the Mass itself, but permitted before or after the Mass. But child molesting and what the pope says about Islam have nothing to do with church music at all. I suppose, though, that this sort of approach is part of our culture nowadays - if we can find anything at all wrong with another person, they we feel justified in condemning all his thoughts and actions as worthless. If he cuts his toenails wrong, then there's no way he can make competent judgments on anything.

-Joe Offer-