For me, the main question isn't 'good' and 'evil' - there are all shades of this in all walks of life.
It boils down to the power and influence of the church and whether it is acceptible in the light of these and many other issues.
All this has stirred up the 'mental mud' and has jogged my memory as to how that power and influence has been used and abused throughout the Catholic world.
I vaguely remembered an incident which once outraged me to the point of tears, of both anger and of compassion, but which had passed into the 'yet another...' filing cabinet compartment of my mind, so I chanced my arm on the internet, and it all came flooding back.
In 2003, a family of Nicaraguan itinerant agricultural labourers were working in Costa Rica. The 9 year old daughter was sent to a local farm for water, where she was raped by the farmer, resulting in her contacting two sexually transmitted diseases and a pregnancy.
The nuns running the hospital where she was treated hid the fact of her pregnancy from her parents until it was past the legal limit for her to be aborted (the law there allows abortion in rape cases only - and only then when the life of the mother is threatened).
On being told that the girl would not survive giving birth at her age and in her condition, the family appealed to the Archbishop and were told that the girl should "Accept her martyrdom with pride". The parents eventually 'went illegal' and were threatened with prosecution by the church, who finally withdrew their threat in the light of adverse publicity.
Can any human being argue that any body should have such a malign influence on peoples' lives?
Jim Carroll