Mar 26, 2010 -- 9:21AM, Mary wrote:

Everytime I see another story of a priest abusing children while the Catholic Church hierarchy swept it under the rug, I get so furious and wonder if I'm in the "right" religion (not that I think there's a "wrong" religion).  There are so many things I love about the Catholic Church - the church of my mother and my childhood.  For example, I love the beautiful rituals and images which have been familiar to me since I was a child and I love the fact that we worship women (Mary and women saints).  What I do not love is the hypocrisy of priests being our conduits to God (and His instruments in the Sacrament of Reconciliation) when they are just human beings like the rest of us and, obviously, some as imperfect as the rest of us.  I also do not love the audacity of the bishops and cardinals who decided (and are probably still deciding) that it is better to protect a pedophile than to help a child.  It's hard to reconcile all of this.  Do others feel this way, too?

There are several active threads on this topic on the Discuss Catholicism board that you might be interested in reading.

community.beliefnet.com/go/forum/view/43...

May 23, 2010 -- 12:55PM, eagle_eye222001 wrote:

Mar 26, 2010 -- 9:21AM, Mary wrote:

Everytime I see another story of a priest abusing children while the Catholic Church hierarchy swept it under the rug, I get so furious and wonder if I'm in the "right" religion (not that I think there's a "wrong" religion).  There are so many things I love about the Catholic Church - the church of my mother and my childhood.  For example, I love the beautiful rituals and images which have been familiar to me since I was a child and I love the fact that we worship women (Mary and women saints).  What I do not love is the hypocrisy of priests being our conduits to God (and His instruments in the Sacrament of Reconciliation) when they are just human beings like the rest of us and, obviously, some as imperfect as the rest of us.  I also do not love the audacity of the bishops and cardinals who decided (and are probably still deciding) that it is better to protect a pedophile than to help a child.  It's hard to reconcile all of this.  Do others feel this way, too?

As another person already pointed out, we do not worship Mary nor the Saints.  Worshipping them puts them on par with God, and that is contrary to the first commandment.

The sex abuse that has been coming out has been terrible to watch.  We always want to think of our leaders as being perfect or sinless...obviously as it is said in Romans, everyone is a sinner.  We need to remember though that the Catholic Church has never taught that its church leaders are perfect.  They have only taught that that the Church teaches infallibly in terms of faith and morals when it teaches in its official capacity.

One thing I have noticed is the media blitz on the Catholic Church.  If you pay attention to the media, you would begin to think that the Church was filled with all these sex-abusing priests and that all the bishops and cardinals hid it.  The reality is that there is no proof or fact that the sex-abuse rate among this celibacy priesthood is higher than married men.  The reality is that there are only a precious few bad apples who make the church look out to be a whorehouse.  Yes, the sex-abuse is all over the papers.....that does not mean it is all over the church.

The reality is that the media is very anti-Catholic (notice the attention public school sex abuse gets even though it is more rampent than the Catholic sex abuse)...so any bad apple will be magnified over a hundred times.

 

The reality is that while many priests and bishops made terrible decisions (even decisions that were consistent with the thinking of the time that sexual abusers could be rehabilitated), there are so many more good priests and bishops out there who have shone like Christ in their work.  The next time you read or hear about a sex abuse scandal, remember you are hearing about a great minority....and not the great majority.

 

The Church is surviving this scandal.   Many will leave the Church for it.  However they are leaving Peter for Judas, and they are not leaving in a rational and logistical manner. 

What a bizarre reaction. It isn't just the scandal that is driving peope out either: it is the rigidity of those prelates stuck in the mire of what was, not what is.

Wavering's suggestion about the Discuss  Catholicism board is totally on target.

"

The reality is that while many priests and bishops made terrible decisions (even decisions that were consistent with the thinking of the time that sexual abusers could be rehabilitated), there are so many more good priests and bishops out there who have shone like Christ in their work.  The next time you read or hear about a sex abuse scandal, remember you are hearing about a great minority....and not the great majority."

I agree.  And I would also add that Protestant churches have their own scandals, sexual and otherwise.  Ted Haggard is one example, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Baker, and others.  Those are just a drop in the bucket.  How about the ones that don't have a TV show, and aren't worldly popular?  Because we are sinful humans, there will be scandals everywhere, so leaving the Mother Church for a denominational (or "non-denominational") church is to go from one set of problems to another.

Mary,

Re: original post - confessing to a priest is logical to me.  It is biblical - "Confess your sins to one another...." and also logical in the sense that we don't confess to a mediator, but to the office of the priest.  A person who has been given the keys of the Kingdom to bind and loosen, to forgive.  No we don't have to confess to a priest, but I don't think formal confessionals are a bad thing either.....