When it comes to analysis of the actions of churches, it's very difficult to find factual information - almost everything you find (including Mudcat threads) has a "spin" on it.

Look at the facts of the case - as I had to, living as I was in Durham at the time with close friends who were members of McLeish's congregation, and the impact those facts had on their lives & faiths whether their children (who he had contact with) were actual victims or not. See HERE for more.

can you really say "oppression, mind-fuck, wholesale massacre, fascist collusion, inquisition, torture & terror" and claim not to be at least a little bit biased?

Hardly biased, Joe - my wife is a practising Roman Catholic from a Roman Catholic family; she also has a theology degree & a canny understanding of the bloody history of her church, as have I, largely through my interest in Gnosticism - especially the barbaric persecution of the Cathar Heresy. The collusion of the Vatican with the Nazi party is well known; their silence regarding the Holocaust remains deafening to this day. All this, and more, is historical fact. Roman Catholicism religion founded on an increasingly bizarre & warped theology that operates at several removes from the teachings and example of the man they claim to worship, let alone the scriptures on which they base their beliefs. If Christ threw the money lenders out of the temple, just imagine his reaction to the Vatican and the RC church in general, with its institutionalised paedophilia and the elevation of an evil old bitch like Mother Theresa to near sainthood. To this day the abortion and contraception laws in Catholic countries are founded on an inhumane oppression on the most fundamental level, and the theology of the church represents a mediaeval ignorance altogether at odds with human enlightenment - hence the OP of this thread.

The historical facts are there, plain as day. So what are you, Joe - Devil's Advocate or Papal Apologist? And is there really any difference between the two?