Hey VP.. while we are here, i thought i'd go ahead and bring this up.
i've said before i have no problem with catholics, even tho my ex wife is one.
but that i had a problem with the ' mother church'
and, since i like you, and since i am less than sober, i thought it worth of some clarification.
you've said ' we all know' and so on about the pedo-priests, so obviously you don't take the standard party line on that issue. that's good.
here's my problem.. i don't expect you to try and defend the church or even try to explain it, i just want to explain myself, k?
It Seems to me, it would engender a lot of positave feedback for the catholic church, world wide, if the pope.. or heck, ANY of the pointy hat brigade would come out and say ,
" we understand your feelings. but what you have to understand is that these people are not priests who are pedophiles, they are pedophiles who were pretending to be priests to give them access to children. in the past it was covered up, in hopes that it would just go away, but that's the wrong path to take. instead, we've compiled a list, and sent it to every major law enforcement agency we cna think of, complete with all of our notes, photographs, etc, so that local law enforcement may apprehend these men who defile both the catholic church and, more importantly, your children. we wash our hands of them, and may God have mercy upon them, if He decides that it is right."
i have two children. and to be frankly honest, while i respect and like a lot of the tenents of the catholic faith, i haven't even taken them to a midnight mass because i thought "yeah.. but what if"...
it really comes down to the fact that i don't wish to spend any time in prison. because if something were done to my children, i'd send the person responsible straight to hell with a first class 9mm punched ticket and wouldn't bat an eye at doing it, whether he wore that collar or not. i'd cap him in the middle of sunday mass in full vestments holding the Eucharist. while i am perfectly willing to do something like that, i love my wife and would rather not spend the rest of my life seeing her for 30 minutes on every alternate thursday, ya know?
so, i guess, because of the catholic church, i've avoided the catholic church.
I don't know this forum thing very well.. i understand there IS a way to send private messages, but i dunno how lol
so this was really for you personally, Vplee.. Bill might reply, and we know what his word is worth, and others on the non-believer side might as well, and that's all good. i feel a kinship with some of them as well. they don't believe, but at least they THINK. in a world of Bill Greys, finding people that think, regardless of their belief, makes me happy. Road Puppy has that one dead to rights. there are too many Sheeple in this world.
i don't mean to offend you... i just wanted to point out, while i'm heavily intoxicated
why i had a problem with your chosen church.
there's a whole lot of other crap other people might bring up, but 90% of it was hundreds of years ago. the kiddie boinking priests are NOW, and i can't understand why the hierachy of the catholic church pretend it isn't happening or that it's ok. it's so simple - those men aren't "men of God" they are sick sick people who are using the church as a path to their desires. it's why you find so many in positions like that. priests.. teachers.. councilors. they are not people who become kiddiediddlers, they are kiddiediddlers who have found a niche to hide in, and the vatican is helping them hide there instead of denoucning them.
the part that scares me the most is that this pope was one of the key people involved in covereing it all up while he was still a bishop.
i liked John Paul II. i credit him, regan and margarat thacher and charlie wilson with the downfall of the USSR and the berlin wall andthe end of the cold war. they are the reason a large part of the US and Russia aren't going in the dark and why my kids don't have 5 arms and 2 heads each.
this pope was a poor poor choice. i hope that the cathoic church can redeem itself with the next one.
that's why i nominated you
you're smart, sassy and you don't tolerate BS just to keep the peace.
anyway. take me apart now as you like.. i took my shots, only fair that you take yours