So, THEN Jim sez: You are prevaricating Joe
Oh, I wonder what he's calling me a liar for now. I guess I have to put up with it. The poor guy babbles a lot and doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

And then she says: You don't have to be a Christian to give to charity
Which I guess is supposed to be an implication that I said one had to be Christian to give to charity. When did I ever say that, Jim?

But still I'm stuck with a dilemma, and that's what I was trying to talk about. But Jim Carroll believes in free expression only from people who agree with him. Nonetheless, it's a dilemma. I think that Catholics were overwhelmingly favorable to the victims when this whole scandal broke out. After all, it was mostly Catholic children who were the victims. They favored immediate compensation of the victims, and immediate prosecution of the criminals. But this thing has gone on and on, and the compensation thing became a bidding war in the U.S. until the price got up to a million dollars a victim - and many dioceses who had already made settlements were forced to pay the same victims a second time for the same crime.

And most of these reparations are coming out of money that people gave as charitable contributions. And if the bills go up higher, the people will have to give more or see their churches go into bankruptcy. Indeed, many dioceses did go into bankruptcy because of these claims.

So, yeah, it's a dilemma for people who contribute to churches. Do they donate to what has become a bottomless pit of million-dollar claims for forty-year-old crimes, or do they bypass the church and give their money direct to charitable needs? As I said above before I was so rudely called a liar, I know the immigrants and the homeless people and their need is real to me. I've never met a person I knew to have been molested by a priest, so their need is not real to me. And on top of that, I have seen no proof that ever-increasing reparations serve to heal the harm that was done to the victims.

So, Jim, try to answer my question without calling me a liar this time. Why should I want to donate to a compensation fund when the compensation doesn't appear to do any good?

And Jim, please remember that I have never said that one has to have a particular religious faith in order to give to charity. And don't call me a liar again. It isn't nice, even if you use the word "prevaricator." I'm smart enough to know what that big word means.

-Joe Offer-