Catholics are as much to blame for clergy abuse as you are to blame for the WARS

[Tom Rinaldo]

113. Oh come on

Almost all of us "support wars" through our taxes. I don't see very many of us doing full scale tax resistance. When Catholics donate money to their Church it is not that unlike American Citizens paying their Federal taxes. We here at DU advocate for raising taxes on the wealthy - that means more money flowing into federal coffers. That means more money potentially available for wars. Yes we also argue against most wars - but stopping them is not a precondition for us supporting raising federal revenues. Yes we argue that the Pentagon should get less moneyu - but that is not a precondition to our supporting raising taxes on the wealthy either.

There are plenty of Nuns and Priests who work and pray for changes in the Catholic Church - and for those who are believers prayor IS action. There are plenty of Catholics who work hard to end child abuse and sexual exploitation. When I had a job with Catholic Charities back in the 80' they paid to establish programs that worked to get homeless, (sometimes called "throw away" rather than "runaway" youth to put the focus where it should be) off of San Francisco streets where they were subject to sexual predators of every stripe. Many, maybe most of them, were gay and lesbian kids. Catholic Charities funded programs that gave them value nuetral services free of any religious expectations, and access to dedicated compassionate Gay and Lesbian counselors who cared deeply about their well being. Money for those programs came from collectons taken during masses from the faithful.

I also don't see many of the 300 million American citizens out in the street protesting child abuse that has taken place in churches either. Ultimateloy it is a secular issue subject to our criminal justice system - which operates in the name of the people - us. The most effective efforts to break through the denial has come from groups directly supporting the victims, and many of them have Catholic identification - dissident Catholics perhaps, but still Catholic. They are part of the resistance.

Meanwhile there are tens of millions of active Catholics practicing civil disobedience if you will regarding some official aspects of current Church dogma. Catholics who support abortion rights, Catholics who practice birth control, Catholics who support gay marriages and attend those ceremonies, Catholics who believe women should be able to become priests.