Joe: I have no doubt that Oscar Romero and many others like him were murdered by members of the "Catholic Church and the moneyed elite [that] have a hegemonic stranglehold on almost all of Latin America."

Jack: So what? Does it make the institution any less murderous, that most of the people it murders are its own believers?

But Romero was the head bishop in El Salvador, and he was murdered under orders from the government, whose leaders were also Catholic. So, is it the institution that murders, or is is members within the institution? And was this a religious murder or a political murder?

It's true that in the 1980s, the leaders of El Salvador and many other nations put a distasteful religious "spin" on their anti-Communism. And there certainly is now a religious "spin" to the anti-homosexual bigotry of many people. But does that warrant a broad condemnation of religion?

If there is misconduct (even widespread misconduct) by members of a group, does it logically follow that the group as a whole must be despised or condemned or abolished?

-Joe-