Ed: "Sure there is crime and sexual abuse elsewhere....but that is not the issue

But it is the issue! If you choose to raise this issue of child abuse, then it is important to recognise the awful truth that it mostly happens elsewhere. That the Church, as a body that was trusted to care for children, had people inside it abused that trust, makes it no different to any other organisation that was used by paedophiles to perpetrate abuse.

Ed: "parishoners blame that they must bear the costs of the settlements on the victims"

And so do local or national taxpayers when governmental organisations get themseves in the same state. Tell me where there is a rational difference please, Ed.

If The Pope was a leader with the power to affect the secular lives of Catholics or non-Catholics (whether believers in something else or in nothing at all), I would probably be as angry as you are, Ed. But he is not that leader and so I couldn't give a monkey's. He is free to say whatever he wants as far as I am concerned. I have said that I think he is wrong and that he can hardly "do good" by these pronouncements. But I'm not taking it out on innocent people, whereas you seem to be doing just that.

The thing is Ed, now I am speaking as someone on the notional receiving end of whatever prejudice Benedict stirs up by his most recent pronouncements, he is rather like the sound of one hand clapping on this point.

Catholics who are not reactionary bigots, and/or those that aspire to and achieve a Christian sense of compassion and forgiveness, will hear him, disregard him and carry on with life, doing good.

Catholics with fear and prejudice issues and a lack of compassion and forgiveness will hear him, approve of him and carry on with their lives and will continue to do harm.

Atheists / Agnostics should probably just ignore him. Atheists with socially progressive, humanist views will continue to be good to their fellow man, Atheist bigots or reactionaries - surprisigingly - will probably become "Catholics for a day" and heartily approve of Benedict's mumblings and take some bizarre support from him.

That, Ed, is a set of observations relevant to the topic. It is about whether the Pope is relevant to the issues about which he spoke, it is about whether he can change the way Catholics go about the world, let alone anyone else. I say probably not - because Catholics (like all groupings of people) reflect a range of the best and the worst that people can be, and where individuals sit in that spectrum has precious little to do with any man of Rome.