Of course. Read my comment 222 again for my explanation.
Why are you so upset? Why the all-caps? Is it wrong of me to want to see Roman Catholics establish up front that pedophilia among a minority of their leadership is first of all wrong, and that maybe the defense of their Church and the “everyone else is doing it” arguments should come a bit later, and not be the first thing y’all say?
Why are Roman Catholics so slow at just coming out against abuse committed by some of their religious leaders, rather than primarily coming out in defense of their denomination?Catholics have repeatedly come out and condemned this abuse but you act as if this condemnation has never happened. How many times do Catholics have to condemn this abuse before you will be satisfied?
I do not think that you understand the reaction of Catholics on this subject. First, despite charges to the contrary, not one Catholic has ever defended these crimes. Yet that is exactly what we have been charged with time and again. No one is more horrified by these crimes than Catholics.
Second, we need to drop the naïveté and have some honesty here. The subject of this abuse has been brought up time and again not in order seek justice against the abusers but as a tool to attack and delegitimatize the Catholic Church. This is clear by the fact that the posters only post about the abuse in the Catholic Church. It is also shown when they segue into attacks against Catholic teaching, as I have shown in post #175. This is clear when they frame the discussion with "the Catholic Church did …" rather than "Fr. X did …" or "Bishop Y did …" The true agenda of those who keep returning to this subject is revealed whenever they use the formula "Catholics who defend their priests" as if any Catholic is actually defending the abusing priests. The unstated assumption is that all priests are abusers, that in order to condemn those who are guilty of abuse one must reject the entire priesthood and the Catholic faith itself. Indeed there are some who have explicitly stated this.
So yes, I will never defend the abuse or coverup by priests or bishops but I will defend the Church whenever you try frame it as the Church and the Catholic faith are guilty rather than the individual priests that committed the abuse.