If the Catholic Church has any good to do in this world and the next, then let them do it, but we should not act shocked and dismayed at any new revelation of wrongdoing. This edifice is rotten to the core.
Just what is your religion and how old are you?
Once you've learned a thing or two about what really motivated the Crusades, you might want to move on to the Inquisition. Try Googling "the Black Legend."
So many ill informed people slandering the great Catholic Church, so little time.
Very few if any new revelations. It's all a rehash of 30yrs ago. And you bring up the crusades? Get reeducated and get a life.
Count all the hospitals, universities world wide created by the Catholics. Count people like Gingrich, Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts. You yourself are a partial product of Catholic teachings and and mores and don't even know if.
Also, the Catholic Church led to the earthly Christianization of Europe and beyond (Protties whose Churches broke off from the “mother” that settled in North America, for example). Crusades, see centuries of Islamic aggression before the mobility into former Christan territories. Hint, the Byzantine and the Holy Roman Empire managed to get along for a short period of time in order to defeat Islamic aggression. Unfortunately they butted heads in Constantinople and the “Islams” took advantage of the division between the two Christian Empires.
My opinion, like every bureaucracy, not a “perfect” organization controlled by men, but perfect under Christ. A serious purging is needed, but to say the Roman Catholic Church has a monopoly on molestation, sin, etc..., within is only fooling oneself.
There are bad Bishops, Cardinals, Pastors, Monsignors, Priest etc... but the percentage is minute. The cover-ups were localized within the autonomous day to day operations of particular Diocese under Bishops preventing scandal, but those idiotic Bishops were solely acting independently.
Let the Church sort it out, as well as all the other seemingly earthly Churches troubled with interior imperfections.
Saying some of you best friend are Catholic means absolutely nothing. Some of my immediate family members are “Catholic”, but not in practice.
You clearly know nothing about the Crusades which began as a righteous defense of the Holy Land, which became co-opted by mercenary groups (like the Templars), who ran afoul of the Pope and ended up taking matters into their own hands.
There was also more than one Crusade, but only one Church-sanctioned instance.
As for the Inquisition, this has been debunked over and over. Firstly, the target of the Inquisition was a very powerful, growing sect of Albigensians that taught that Christ had both the Father and the Devil in him. That God was both Good and Evil. ‘nuff said. They were demonically directed and the spiritual well-being of the Spanish flock was in grave danger. Secondly, the so-called mass executions were wildly, if not laughably overstated. And the executions were not carried out by the Church, but the state. Compared to the ridiculous assertions that have grown over time, the actual number of executions was a mere handful.
What was wrong with the Crusades?