Reply #7: Be sure to see Deliver us From Evil

[JDPriestly]

This Oscar nominated documentary focuses on a priest out here in California who abused many, many children and the role Cardinal Mahoney played in transferring this known child abuser from parish to parish. Then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict II(?) was the individual in the Vatican who failed his responsibility to stop and prevent child abuse by priests. No evil without reward in some organizations I guess. The Church's failings on child abuse (and women's issues) are a terrible shame because the Catholic Church has an exemplary record on many other social issues.

You need to rent the video. For those of us interested in the history of the Christian church generally, there is a fascinating extra feature in which a theologian discusses the fact that Timothy suggested that in the early church, priests were married. Timothy states that to be the equivalent of a bishop, a man should not only be married, but have shown himself to be a father who gained the respect of his children. The theologian states that the Catholic Church eventually prohibited priests from marrying so that the Church would inherit the priest's property upon the priest's death. What a greedy institution.