I can't really put up a sincere defense for the Catholic Church in particular since I'm not Catholic and indeed also have disagreements with how it's run and some of the ideas it advocates. However, your solution is basically apathy as well. It's like decrying the poor quality of presidential candidates, blaming it on voter apathy, and then deciding not to vote because you want no part of such a rotten system. I'll admit to doing that myself, but I'll also admit it's pretty much apathy disguised as outrage, since I'm too lazy to do much else about it.Killzig wrote: As for governments, religions, etc being misused on occassion -- fair but when you're talking about the catholic church it's a CHRONIC thing. And you shouldn't just shrug it off and say "well what big organization with sway doesn't misuse its power" because you just perpetuate it. APATHY is just as bad as molesting that altar boy yourself. It's as easy as not going to church, not giving a cent towards them, and burning down the occassional church bulletin board that's been plastered with anti choice propaganda on your local campus. Also, my Good Friday Red Meat Only BBQs are not a thing to be missed. Lots of booze, good eats... heh
And I imagine part of the reason for things like shuffling the child abusing priests was exactly because of lack of funds. The church is hurting for new priests, recruiting and training new ones takes more money than they have, so some of the higher ups probably felt they were doing the best with what they had. Try to get the offending priests to change, maybe not grill them as hard as they should have they say "Yes, I've changed", then send them out into the world again. That's perhaps a little too easy to do that when you belong to an institution that places a high value on forgiveness and redemption. I'm not condoning the actions or the possible rationales by any means, I'm just saying that withdrawing from the institution isn't exactly taking the moral high ground, it's just taking the easy way out. If you really wanted to make a change, you'd do better to continue to be a supporting member of the church and try to get your ideas across, as well as investigate and expose people you think are harming the church and its members. Or else join a different denomination that is less hierarchical where you'll have a bigger say in what goes on in your church and the priests are monitored and held accountable for their actions by their flock rather than a few guys in Rome. Vote with your feet and show the church the kind of religion people will support. Yeah, whatever you do individually is fairly insignificant in the big scheme of things, but you're not exactly bankrupting the church by completely withdrawing from it, either. As it is, you're really doing no more to stop child molesting priests than the old dowager who faithfully shows up every Sunday, maybe less as she at least gives the church money that might go towards better recruiting and training for priests.
That's all what I'm basically getting at. Scream and curse when you see something wrong. At someone who can actually do something about it, not just random boardies. Hold people accountable for their actions. Yeah, it's tougher than taking potshots, but it's also the only thing that will actually make a difference. Just giving up, withdrawing, saying the whole system is crooked and sniping at it from the shadows isn't going to solve anything, though.
