Unless you are Roman Catholic you cannot comment on the church?
I have friends who are Jews and some who are Mormons and some who are Jehovah's Witnesses, some who are Evangelicals and some who are Pentecostal, some who are agnostic and some who are atheists. I tend to get along with them all by having good enough manners not to make fun of them or their beliefs. If anyone has the bad manners to initiate verbal aggression against my Roman Catholic Church, I will hold their feet to the fire by way of counterpunch.
If any are conservative as most of my friends are, we will agree to disagree on religion or to gently but respectfully chide one another in good fun while cooperating on matters political. If I understand correectly, that's the way Free Republic is supposed to be. We pay each other respect while respectfully disagreeing. If someone who is. say, a Pentecostal wants to try to convert me, I won't be converted, but I probably won't be insulted either. That person is trying to share with me what is most precious to him or her which is no insult. As the Pentecostal may ask me to consider to see the Bible as he or she sees it in the hope that I will be born again and saved, I may point out to the Pentecostal the advantages of the Mass and sacraments as I see it.
If some newspaper jackass with an attitude and an agenda as an ex-priest wants to make such ludicrous claims as 1/3 of Catholic bishops are gay, I am in a fighting mood in legitimate defense of our clergy. If posters here want to make a career out of posting from newspapers unsubstantiated allegations of that sort, I am in a fighting mood. I am more likely to fight liberal Catholics than anyone else. I admit a weakness for responding, perhaps too enthusiastically against Randians and pagans.
I don't think that it is too much to ask that disagreements be kept civil. I don't think Catholics have a special obligation to let wild charges go unanswered.