Bill: I'm sure you can find somebody somewhere who wants the Catholic Church to marry gays, in church, as they now marry heterosexuals. (Or as at least one church I know of has "married" gays but without the caveat that the religious/social action has no legal standing.) But I wouldn't hold my breath while you're hunting, so the bulk of your initial post is talking past the point at best (from a few of the posters I've seen here I'd call it deliberate obfuscation, but I don't recall your posting in that style).
And as for your claim that the pederasts realized they were sinning -- what grounds do you have for that claim? I'll grant that the priest quoted recently in the Boston Globe (-"A lesser sin to prevent a greater sin is a Good Thing, so we should masturbate each other so you won't become sinfully interested in girls"-) may have been conning his victim; can you see that the my-way-or-the-highway attitude you ascribe to religion is an invitation for its special parties to believe that whatever they do is right? For that matter, one of the more notorious cases (Shanley?) was an active proponent of man-boy "love".
To help with the arrogance, the Catholic Church has non-participating supporters like Philip Jenkins, author of The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice; he's quoted as describing the ]fuss[ over priestly abuse of minors as disproportionate when compared to the attention given to teachers who abuse minors. (Has anyone had the stomach to read this? I haven't after that description.) I've heard several reports of abusive teachers, and in none of them was the teacher shuffled off to another post against the recommendation of a psychiatrist (as happened many times under Cardinal Law). What usually happens is that a mere accusation of a teacher is enough to get them barred from any contact with minors; there is never an attempt to hush it up "to avoid scandalizing the faithful" (which the Catholic hierarchy at least appears to consider a major crime, from quotes over the last year-plus). I'd argue that this devotion to hiding anything that might lead people to question is the ultimate sickness -- in a church or anywhere else -- because it bars the possibility of edging closer to any truth.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2003 | 2 |
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