quote:
Originally posted by THE Franta:
I have a confession to make....

since Dave has been backing me as President I started to read his posts here!

No really I have,

I dont always have much to add but as a recovering Catholic I feel a need to respond to the Pope comments.
First off...how can this senile fool be an actuall head of anything? I mean the guy barely knows what he just had for lunch and billions all over the world hang on whatever he says!
He's actually an incredibly smart guy but....

quote:

This whole Pedder ass scandal is a load of crap! Everyone acting SHOCKED, please people and NOT just the priests knew this kinda crap has been happeneing for years before I was even born! And the Church just wants to kinda sweep it under the carpet as isolated incidents! The Cardinal in chicago had a press confrence and said the following "We have to look at this on a case by case basis, I mean if a priest had a few drinks and has consensual sex with a 16 or 17 year old [YES HE REALLY SAID THIS!] it might be ok!" Oddly enough that was only broadcast once.....hmmmmm talk about conspiracies.....
...but you're right, he has seriously messed this up. Not only was it a public relations disaster for the Church, he tried to smooth it over by talking about doing something to stop it, and then doing nothing.

Part of the Church's problem is that it still thinks itself above secular laws. This means that the priests of the Church shouldn'tbe subject to criminal laws concerning child molestation or whatever, and that's plain wrong. If the Church wanted to impress people with a solid clean up campaign, it would adopt a zero tolerance attitude towards such conduct. And frankly why would anyone expect anything less? Child molestation is a crime, and a benevolent organisation like the Church should have no place for it whatsoever.

And covering it up just makes it worse, because people start to think there is a conspiracy (thinking about that, there actually is one). It just goes to show how out of touch the senior hierarchy of the Church is with popular sentiment.

I don't like to bash the Catholic Church as I think it does some good things in the world, but this is plain wrong.

quote:

To compare molestation to abortion is apples and oranges and gets the fanatics in the Church back to focusing on the Abortion clinics shooting them instead of ringing the Bell of the Chicago Cardnials home and saying "the angel of death is coming for you!" [yes that happened too!]

Enough seriousness back to your regualrly scheduled BOOBIES![/QB]
Whatever your view on abortion, you have to acknowledge that there are good intellectual arguments either way (abortion is killing unborn children vs. laws against abortion is government regulation of/interference in a woman's reproductive system). Child molestation is another thing entirely - there is no justification for it. The dipshit Australian Cardinal who said this needs to wake up.