I was never united with Calvin so as to be able to break with him.
I respond to the threads in whatever way seems appropriate to me and owe no explanations if I don't make comparisons of one group's abuse to anothers.
But if my statement that you quote is not so, I'll try your logic should I ever be hauled before the bar:
“Your Honor, Why are you picking on me when there are thousands, yea, tens of thousands, doing the same and worse and you've not said a word about them!!”.
And then I'll accuse him of bias against me, having an agenda, indifference to all the other victims of crime, his silence on forums I read, maybe pull out some charts to show my law breaking has slowed to a minor amount.
Yeah. some logic.
“Wouldn't you agree that those who exploit the victims for political or sectarian purposes are nearly as guilty as those who exploit them for sexual gratification?.”
You do understand then why those of the hierarchy that turned their heads while the abuse was taking place have to be dealt with too.
"Your Honor, Why are you picking on me when there are thousands, yea, tens of thousands, doing the same and worse and you've not said a word about them!!”.
I think that's the point. Why focus on one religious group when abuse occurs everywhere?
IOW the only reason at this point to focus on the Catholic Church wrt "abuse" is to attempt to smear the Church as some kind of breeding ground for abuse.
The conditions that fostered the continued abuse by some priests have been corrected, or at the very least are in the process of being corrected. No one can reasonably deny that.
The rate of abuse in the Church at the height of the scandal was at least, no greater than the general population, if not less than the population.
Given these facts, there is no reason to continue to single out the Church for sins some of Her clergy committed. The only reason to do so, that would be reasonable, would be a concern that it's still going on. There is no evidence of that.
To return to your analogy, this would be akin to asking a judge to recuse himself when/if there is a hint of bais on his part. Those who continue to hammer the Church for sins in the past, with no evidence abuse continues today (at least none that is ignored/referred for treatment by some leftist Bishop) show this level of bias, and therefore should "recuse themselves" from such discussion/debate.
That is, if such people are intellectually honest.