Well, Ed, you lost track of the facts long ago.

I suppose you can't do it - but see if you can divorce yourself from all this for a few minutes. If a doctor were to molest a child, how much in damages should be paid by the clinic where he is employed? If the clinic were to offer a settlement of $40,000 in 1980 dollars, would that be reasonable? In 1980, $40,000 was about half the value of the average house in California, and there were places in the US at the time where you could get a pretty nice house for $40,000.

In most cases in the U.S., victims were offered fairly generous settlements that did not require them to go to court - they had to go to court only if they wanted a larger settlement, or if the offender was criminally prosecuted (that's the U.S. Constitution, not the Catholic Church, that requires that a criminal defendant be able to face his accuser in most cases). There were a few lawsuits that established the facts of the cases and set the amounts of settlements, but most of the complaints were settled out of court or in class action suits.

And in most cases in my diocese and many others, people who were compensated quite generously twenty years or more ago, came back for more money during the past decade. What happened is that there were a few dioceses like Boston that were absolutely callous in their treatment of victims. I think there almost were reasonable grounds for criminal prosecution of Cardinal Law of Boston. He lost his exalted position in shame, but he's lucky he's not in prison. Juries in Boston and some other places with similar problems were outraged, and awarded high damages to the victims - and rightly so. But those high damage awards set the bar high all over the U.S., even in places where church officials had conducted themselves responsibly - and hundreds of closed and settled cases were reopened with demands for higher damage awards.

Although you finally accept that Pope Benedict DID apologize personally and directly to a number of victims, you say he's too late, that he should have done it much sooner. Well, he did it in the U.S. within just a few months after he became Pope. I will agree that it was terribly wrong that no apology or even acknowledgement was made by John Paul II, who was pope 1978-2005. I despised John Paul II, and celebrated on the day he died.

And you talk about church leaders who "publically lobby to limit the long fought rights of equality..." - you neglect to say that the topic of this discussion was a statement that the Pope made in Rome to bishops to the UK, discussing a law that will affect the way those bishops act as employers. This was discussion within an organization, not lobbying government officials. And the concern wasn't about employees who cut grass - it was about people in teaching and pastoral positions. And are you upset that current and previous Popes spoke out against the U.S. wars in Iraq and Vietnam, and against unjust treatment of immigrants in the U.S., against the sex trade in Asia, against nuclear weapons, and against race discrimination in the U.S. Is it wrong for the Catholic Church to interfere with national governments by sending food to citizens who are starving?

And these artworks that you think should be sold - most are religious artifacts, donated for religious purposes. I don't know what the laws are in other places, but in the US, donations have to be used for the purpose they were donated for. These pieces of art were given for the enjoyment by the public - rich and poor, Catholic and non-Catholic alike. Don't you think poor people should be allowed to see the greatest works of art known to humankind?

Facts, Ed, facts. If you want to carry on a rational discussion, you have to honor the facts.

-Joe Offer-