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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How are you able to reconcile practicing the Catholic faith after yesterday's release of more sexual abuse by priests?  I ask out of genuine curiosity. [/quote]

1.  Child abuse is disgusting and horrifying and child abusers need to be jailed.

2.  Child abuse exists in a lot of settings.  Including many different religions, schools (including public), sports (gymnastics, Penn State), entertainment (tons of hollywood scandals), summer camps, etc.

3.  The Catholic Church has a number of special issues relating to celibacy, which attracted a lot of closeted homosexual clergy (80% of abuse cases were teenage boys), and a hierarchical structure that promotes consistent teaching of the faith but also discourages challenges to the decisions of the hierarchy.  So while abuse can and does happen in many settings, there were particular problems in the Church that must be addressed and cannot be waived away.

4.  Most of the abuse in the Catholic Church was prior to the turn of the century.  I am sure things are not perfect, but I do think many steps have been made since then.  But I also 100% agree that some steps are not enough.  I don't want to sit idly by.  I want to change the culture of the church, call the cops on any remaining child abusers, and throw out any bishops that failed at their job.  If I failed at my private sector job I'd be fired in a heartbeat.  There are plenty of good priests that can replace some of these failed bishops, and it's a disgrace that the Vatican doesn't send them packing and bring in new blood.

5.  If we root out the gay subculture in the Church that will solve a lot of problems.  That group was responsible for a lot of the culture of "don't snitch on father so-and-so."  They did not want people to call them out on their moral indiscretions, so they turned a blind eye to the indiscretions of others.  In some cases, like Cardinal McCarrick, members of that subgroup would band together and encourage each other's rise up the hierarchy and then cover up for each other and encourage an environment where questions were not asked and investigations were never made.  Most of these folks were simply sexually active with other adults, but this was the corrupt backdrop in which abusers (both homosexual abusers of teenage boys and pedophiles abusing younger children) could thrive.

#5 may not be politically correct but anyone who has dug into this scandal in great depth cannot deny it is a factor.  The culture of the Church has actually changed a lot in the next few decades so I'm hopeful that things are turning around.  But the current corrupt generation of leaders at the top needs to die off or get replaced before we can be confident real change will occur.  I vote replaced, so I will stay and push for reform for my church.

Cardinal Wuerl (and Cardinal Tobin in Newark for that matter) should resign immediately.  I wouldn't mind seeing O'Malley (Boston) and Dolan (NY) resign too.

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