As Iam at present in a God-forsaken land that hasn't yet had the wit to forsake Him in return (Bosnia) I haven't yet seen the debate. But a couple of points have been made here that deserve to be challenged.

First olddude in his assertion that the Catholic church gets all the bad press. It doesn't get a fraction of the stick dished out to the Islamic church.

Second, Joe's usual defence that a church is not its hierarchy but its people still doesn't work for the Catholic church. The views of its hierarchy (a hierarchy which in my view most certainly HAS been obsessed with sex (or at least pre-occupied) have wrought great harm on many lives, not least in Africa, often through the manipulation and exploitation of the more vulnerable among its people. Those thinkers and intellectuals within the church who know its behaviour is wrong (I would say morally corrupt) can't say "Not me" unless they are openly applying their efforts towards ending the abuses - starting perhaps with the desperately urgent question of the church's attitude to protected sex in Africa.