General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Catholics are as much to blame for clergy abuse as you are to blame for the WARS [View all]Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)To move to another country requires a great deal of money, acceptance by that nation and the formal rejection of American citizenship and visiting rights. You can not simply buy a ticket and go be French or Dutch or Canadian.
It is absolutely legal to be without a religious affiliation. To leave a religion does not cost money, require lawyers nor permissions, it can be done instantly by personal will alone. Just as personal will alone keeps folks in a faith. Nothing at all compels religious affiliation.
Becoming a citizen of another country is the choice of the other country, no nation has to accept you, most have huge restrictions as to who gets to become a citizen. For Americans, if you do not become a citizen of another nation, you still pay taxes here. So just moving to another country does not alter that. Another government has to grant you citizenship, not residency, citizenship. If they don't want to, they simply send you back to the US.
It would be nice to see crowds in the street protesting the bigotry and the child abuse. It would be a huge testimony to the value of that faith if more who hold it offered empathy to the victims of the dogma and of the institutional 'problems with children'. Why is it so hard for those who say they follow Jesus to say 'I am so sorry our Pope calls your family evil, I do not think that and I tell my fellows in the faith that I support equality. It is wrong that you should have to hear the Pope spew venom at your loved ones."
Those who are offended at criticism of the Pope instead of the criticism the Pope piles on others are offended at the wrong thing. Pope smears my family and household. Would it really break the backs of his followers to apologize for his trash talk?