re: #171 reine.de.tout

I was in NO WAY trying to say the Catholic Church has no responsibility for handling this problem. None.

If you want to believe that the entire Church is ‘rotten” (the Church, of course, being its members like myself), then I guess you will just have to believe that.

As for priests - I know a number of very good, compassionate priests, who are on duty 24/7 for anyone needing anything. To allow pedophile priests to shake my faith would be silly for me.

O I’m not blaming the rank and file. Believe me, I could give you a list a mile long of good catholics. I still identify as catholic most of the time. I’ve also known some truly great parish priests. But when you get to the levels of bishop, and part of me fears beyond that to the College… well, I worry. These people need to either beg for mercy or they should not be in the church.

It seems to me, at least in my family and larger faith community that too many catholics have been isolating themselves, “Well MY church is fine. My priest is good. I’m not connected to that part of the church.” Every catholic needs to be concerned about the church from Rome right down to each and every parish church.