Gene your comments have been measured, genuine and you made no excuses. I appreciate your candor on the matter AND your defense of the faithful in the Catholic church. Where I was a bit shocked that some of the faithful here, being faithful Catholics were not a bit more outraged. I guess it comes with years of eye poking, brunt of late night comedy jokes and a host of other stuff flung at the Catholic church which may make some very defensive. I can understand that.
On Phil? No I would not support an 18 year old man touching or dating a man’s 14 year old girl. Just wrong and the way I was raised. I think if you sent a note to Phil, he would readily admit he was wrong as well as his alcohol, drugs and other sinful living before he repented and put on Christ. What he did was wrong and I think he would even tell us so as well.
Redleg,
ref the comment about not being more outraged -
With our mutual background, maybe it helps to frame it like this:
We in the Army know we had (and continue to have) a big problem with sexual harassment/assault. Our command structure covered up and moved offenders (particularly high-ranking ones) around, or retired them with a reduction and a slap. We know that, we hate it, we are doing everything we know to stop it. We have cracked down, trained and retrained our soldiers, prosecuted offenders, but it still happens. We are embarrassed because we are supposed to be better than that.
Seems every time we turn around, the Navy and the Air Force are busting our chops about it, calling us sexual abusers and attackers, giving no credit for the advancements or improvements even though they have their own problems (Lackland AFB, Colorado Springs, Annapolis).
After awhile it does get old, and people tend to want to point out that there is sin in all the houses, not just the Army.
All Catholics know it happened. We WERE outraged, ARE outraged, and continue to be outraged by what happened.
I know of none that are proud of it, and none that want to see one more person abused.
What I WOULD like is for people to do some research on what is now, what the church has done and continues to do to protect kids rather than reflexively attacking.
It’s like a soldier today being continually chastised about Sergeant Major McKinney’s behavior in the 80’s and 90’s.
Regards