Well, no, Steve. Every once in a while, you make sense.

You say: But the Church HAS dragged its feet badly over sexual abuse and it HAS condoned the mistreatment of women and it HAS been utterly unreal in its teachings about contraception and those teachings HAVE caused harm, and it HAS been misogynistic and it HAS been antisemitic.

I would agree with every word of that assessment, and all of that deserves serious discussion.

If you haven't done so, take a look at the National Catholic Reporter article I linked to above:

https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/cardinal-laws-complex-role-contemporary-history-clergy-sexual-abuse

The article is an honest, critical, and very factual discussion of the sex scandal, and it isn't complimentary at all to the U.S. bishops. That's the kind of discussion we need - something that looks into the issue seriously and stays away from broad generalizations.

But that's not what we're getting here. Instead of delving into the facts of the situation, we're getting countless repetitions of surface information. The very frequency of the repetition distorts every discussion into bigotry. Raggytash started this thread with "yet more abuse" - but it was abuse he reported in another thread last year. If I mention the word "Jesuit," how long will it take for Jim Carroll to come out yet again with his twisted interpretation of "Give me the child at the age of 8, and I'll show you the man" ??? And then he'll go off once again on his Jesuit brainwashing theory. And Greg_F? Well, he's just habitually hateful.

I come from the Land of Bigotry, and I know bigotry when I see it. I've seen similar anti-crime logic used to condemn blacks and hispanics and gays and homeless people. It's hard to refute that sort of bigotry because it's based on facts - but it's distorted to create the illusion that the misconduct is an everyday occurrence committed by all members of the targeted class.

And yes, crime is a serious matter and must be dealt with seriously.

Not with the hysteria I see so often in these threads.

-Joe Offer-