Catholics Should Leave the Church
The Catholic sex scandal continues and the Vatican has continued to blame everyone except themselves. Most Catholics in America don’t even agree with the Pope on a growing list of important issues and yet they continue to go to church and donate money which gets funneled back to the Vatican to fight for and against issues they don’t agree with and to protect pedophile priests from getting prosecuted.
On the issues front, many Catholics in America and probably other parts of the world tend to be pretty liberal people. Many are very supportive of gay rights including the right to marry, women’s rights to… be equal and to have an abortion if they choose, birth control including sending condom’s to Africa, comprehensive sex education, stem cell research, etc., etc.
Even if some Catholics agree with the Pope on all of those issues, why are they continuing to fund the Vatican’s pedophile protection and relocation program? No Catholic could possibly agree with that, right?
The fact is that any Catholic who continues to fund the Catholic Church is supporting these things overtly and any Catholic who continues to identify with the Catholic Church gives tacit support to the Vatican on these issues. Both world and local authorities are afraid to prosecute child abuse cases involving Catholic priests because the Vatican can boast one billion believers. While some cases have been and are continuing to be investigated, there is certainly a stigma against going up against the Catholic Church.
The fact that there are often Catholics in law enforcement and other positions of public trust can be intimidating to those abused by a priest. It becomes hard to know who to trust. Will those in positions of public trust side with their Church or with the victim? While most of the time, these public servants will take the side of the victim in a professional and unbiased manner, however the very fact that they identify with the Catholic Church is intimidating.
It is time for current Catholics to decide whether or not they can in good conscience remain Catholic. Are they going to continue to give their tacit and overt support to the Pope and the Vatican, or are they going to side with their conscience and help to prosecute those who raped and sexually assaulted children and those who have tried to cover it up by leaving the Church and ending their support to the Catholic Church?
Filed under: abortion, Catholics, culture war, morality, Religion