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If you haven't noticed, RC clergy have been "thrown out" of the ministry.
Absolutely. But only after a huge number of lawsuits were filed, and only after the coverups had gone on for decades. So you can hardly say that the church did the right thing under its own volition, whereas almost all protestant churches have, for decades, had pro-active mechanisms in place to deal with this issue.
If a priest is even falsely accused and proven innocent by civil law, he is thrown out of the ministry. That is extreme in my opinion.
The links above are directed to those who blindly refuse to see this problem as a human problem. They only choose see it as a Catholic problem. They are probably too closed minded to read them anyway.
Scandals always follow churches and that is the work of the devil.
The Catholic Church will survive as it has through the scandals of the last 2000 years.
The problems don't appear as bad in the protestant churches for a several of reasons:
1) There are way more Catholics than any one Protestant organization.
2) When a priest messes up, it's front-page. When a Protestant preacher does it, it's page 8. I believe that Catholic priests are held to a higher standard and rightfully so. I take that as a compliment.
3) Little local protestant churches have little money. The Catholic Church has lots of money. Lawyers love money. This should probably be number 1.
Did the Catholic Church do the right thing from the beginning. Absolutely not. But they have since tried to make amends as best they can by paying out huge sums of money. They have finally gotten rid the problem priests. The Roman Catholic Church has since decided that quality is better than quantity. Quantity was the main, but inexcusable reason, that Catholic Church let some of this go on for too long. There is a shortage of native clergy and therefore their gut reaction, their human reaction, was to preserve the few priests that they had. They have since come to their senses and have gotten rid of the problem priests.
I still remain proud to be Catholic, despite the bad apples.
The problems don't appear as bad in the protestant churches for a several of reasons:
1) There are way more Catholics than any one Protestant organization.
2) When a priest messes up, it's front-page. When a Protestant preacher does it, it's page 8. I believe that Catholic priests are held to a higher standard and rightfully so. I take that as a compliment.
3) Little local protestant churches have little money. The Catholic Church has lots of money. Lawyers love money. This should probably be number 1.
Did the Catholic Church do the right thing from the beginning. Absolutely not. But they have since tried to make amends as best they can by paying out huge sums of money. They have finally gotten rid the problem priests. The Roman Catholic Church has since decided that quality is better than quantity. Quantity was the main, but inexcusable reason, that Catholic Church let some of this go on for too long. There is a shortage of native clergy and therefore their gut reaction, their human reaction, was to preserve the few priests that they had. They have since come to their senses and have gotten rid of the problem priests.
I still remain proud to be Catholic, despite the bad apples.
The Catholic church only admitted culpability when this scandal hit. In the decades prior, by its own accounting, literally thousands of priests were guilty of this conduct, and the church was an active agent in covering up their crimes. This was not a case of letting "some of this go on for too long" as you put it, but rather making this the modusoperandi of the church. This was not a mild oversight, as you wish to paint it, but an affront to the spiritual mission of the church and a betrayal of all those childrenwho were scarred for life, not to mention their families.
That is the fundamental difference in how the scandal was covered as opposed to protestant churches, which historically have ejected clergy from its ranks immediately, including reporting the offenders to the authorities.
Now that reforms have been forced on the church by outside pressures, perhaps it will become a more honest institution in the world. Then it can be truly a church you can be proud of again, without the need to make excuses.
The Catholic church only admitted culpability when this scandal hit. In the decades prior, by its own accounting, literally thousands of priests were guilty of this conduct, and the church was an active agent in covering up their crimes. This was not a case of letting "some of this go on for too long" as you put it, but rather making this the modusoperandi of the church. This was not a mild oversight, as you wish to paint it, but an affront to the spiritual mission of the church and a betrayal of all those childrenwho were scarred for life, not to mention their families.
That is the fundamental difference in how the scandal was covered as opposed to protestant churches, which historically have ejected clergy from its ranks immediately, including reporting the offenders to the authorities.
Now that reforms have been forced on the church by outside pressures, perhaps it will become a more honest institution in the world. Then it can be truly a church you can be proud of again, without the need to make excuses.
I haven't made any excuses. We are fully culpable. And yet, while I am not proud of this situation, I have no doubt that we shall persevere and remain strong just as Jesus said it would almost 2000 years ago.
In related news, Catholics of the future will be able to watch the Star Wars movies without feeling compelled to say "And also with you" every time somebody says "May the force be with you."
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