Is it finally getting through to the Catholic Church?

I have mentioned often enough on here that my longest-standing friend is a Roman Catholic.  A number of other important people in my life have also been Catholics, including a girl I was once considering marrying. Mother Teresa was a person whom you could not fail to admire, and except for his stance on birth control (the world is overpopulated and expecting self-restraint is unreal!), the last Pope was undoubtedly a worthy man.

So as an atheist, I am prepared to live and let live with Catholicism a lot of the time. Far more so than with some of their Protestant cousins, who seem to think that "Blessed be the hypocrites" should be part of the Sermon on the Mount.

And one should in all fairness point out that most Catholic bishops and priests are well-meaning, if occasionally philosophically conservative individuals.

So the black sheep in their midst who have sullied the reputation of the Church internationally are a very small, if very iniquitous minority. Unfortunately given who they are, people at large are not going to forgive and forget. If the scandal of their behaviour cannot and should not be ignored, so the scandalous way in whch the hierarchy of the Catholic Church handled it can also not be ignored.

A paedophile is a paedophile. End of story. Someone who is in a position of trust where children are concerned and abuses them is about as low as they get. There is and can be no forgiveness! If a teacher were involved you would never hear the last of it. And any organisation that has such a person in their midst should not offer them cover, the person in question should be handed over to the appropriate authorities to face the full power of the law.

I cannot see why so many priests who were guilty of such terrible actions were dealt with so leniently by the church - it runs counter to the very teachings that the organisation is trying to propagate.

Today I had to teach myself what exactly a sacristan does. Is he a priest usw? The answer is a bit complex, but apparently the answer is "yes".

And why would I want to know this all of a sudden? This morning just before going out I noticed on Yahoo Deutschland that a sacristan was on trial in Würzburg charged with 20 (yes, twenty!) cases of sexual molestation. I cannot recall with one altar boy or several, but you get the message.

Bite your lip at this point, accept that there is no verdict, the guy is entitled to a fair trial, it may prove unfounded ..... GRRRRR! If he is guilty (20 charges, not one or two - sounds more than possible), nothing that can be described as good can possibly come out of this. A young life or lives will have been ruined forever, possibly, I am told that the sense of guilt never leaves the child even as an adult.

The one slight positive though is that he is actually on trial in a civil court for what for all of us is a criminal act! How many priests who actually did commit such crimes did not face civil justice and were protected by the Catholic Church? That at least is a step in the right direction!

Let there be no discussions about abstruse nonsense about morality or sin. The act may be sinful, it may be immoral - IT DEFINITELY IS CRIMINAL! And rather than having discussions about such people eventually rotting in Hell (wherever that may be if it exists????) LET THEM ROT IN THIS LIFE IN A NASTY UNPLEASANT JAIL INSTEAD - AND FOR A VERY LONG TIME!!!!