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All this anti-Catholic bigoted flap was NEVER about non-Catholics’ concern for children, else they would have looked immediately and visibly at their own confession.

Look how easily this entire thread has been diverted into a several-hundred post discussion of my opinion of St. Paul, and how wicked I am for it! With all the “children” forgotten immediately.

I feel somewhat responsible for this long sidebar on Paul and John since I added a lot of fuel to the embers at post 516.

However, I am neither anti-Catholic nor anti-Catholicism.

I'm just a Christian, plain and simple, responding when I'm compelled to do so. In this case, the discussion about Paul brought a flood of Scripture to mind that I needed to release.

And I have already posted my response to the child abuse scandal over here. (repeated below)

Seems to me that the root of the problem is that the church has somehow accepted and/or retained people in the ministry who do not take God seriously.

This is not only a Catholic problem.

For instance, we see similar conduct and gay activist religious leaders in various Protestant organizations.

Such persons obviously do not take God seriously for if they believed God, if they knew Him, if they loved Him they could in no way willfully do things which God has declared an abomination.

For our God [is] a consuming fire. - Hebrews 12:29

Surely members of Protestant assemblies share the guilt with the perps in their assembly because they can and should either remove them or pack up and leave (emphasis mine.)

It is reported commonly [that there is] fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.

And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, [concerning] him that hath so done this deed, In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Your glorying [is] not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened.

For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened [bread] of sincerity and truth. - I Cor 5:1-8

In the Catholic hierarchical structure it seems to me the assembly does not share in the guilt in the same way because they evidently do not have the authority to remove a minister. They could however pack up and leave.

But if they believe on authority of the religious hierarchy that they cannot or should not leave, it seems to me that the guilt accrues to the higher authorities in the same way they will no doubt be held accountable by God for every responsibility they have been assigned or have assumed.

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and [that] he were drowned in the depth of the sea. - Matthew 18:6

Again, the church should not tolerate ministers who do not take God seriously.

God's Name is I AM.