"What's upsetting, Jim? "
Your latest response to the crimes of the church, which you have reduced to a "handful of bad apples" and "happened long ago" - will do for a start.
Nowhere to you acknowledge or, as far as I can see, even refer to the guilt of the Church as a whole in this affair.
Don't you find it at all important that the leadership of the world's most powerful religious body colluded in perpetuating the widespread, probably worldwide sexual abuse of children under its influence and often in its care?
Is it of no concern to you that the church - right up to the Vatican - fought tooth and nail to keep these offences hidden for as long as they could, hiding and denying access to evidence - still very much a feature of all this?
Doesn't it outrage you to learn that the retired pope lied about his knowledge of these scandals?
Is the involvement of the church as a body, from top to bottom not even worth a mention?
That the surviving victims of these crimes had to demand, often to the point of humiliating themselves, to have their cases aired, never mind acknowledged and dealt with, is bad enough. That any church member should write it off as "a few bad apples a long time ago" after the church leadership has offered little more than lip-service expressions of sympathy is what I find most offensive.
These go far beyond crimes of the individual - they are offences committed against the faithful by a church that still remains uncaring and unrepentant beyond the effect that it has on its own well-being.
They bring into question the role of the church its responsibility to its followers and its role in the world.
It has shown it cannot be trusted - if I were a Catholic, it is that fact that would be uppermost in my mind.
What upsets me personally is that it is somebody I have grown to respect and like who is supporting this by reducing its importance to a few criminals a long time ago.
Jim Carroll