The News-Press
March 25, 2011
http://www.news-press.com/article/20110325/OPINION/110325017/-1/diningproto/Martha-Hill-s-blog-Catholics-please-don-t-come-home-?odyssey=nav|head
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| Francis Finnegan, center, embraces his family during a news conference in Philadelphia, Wednesday, March 16, 2011. Finnegan filed a civil lawsuit that says officials from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia covered up sexual assault allegations against a priest who molested him in the late 1960s. / AP Photo |
The Catholic Church has been running a series of advertising asking Catholics to “come home.”
I don’t think many Catholics will come home unless the Church provides divorced couples with “amnesty.” The Church’s process of “annulment” is a joke.
But this is just one of the many reasons Catholics have departed the Church, by far not the most important.
The biggest reason Catholics have abandoned Rome’s institution is because they are disgusted with the way bishops throughout the world under the precise orders of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have handled the sexual abuse of minors by priests. (And they want to canonize John Paul II?)
In this the season of Lent, Catholics are asked to pray, repent and do almsgiving, yet the Church’s hierarchy continues to exist in a sinful manner , showing no repentance or at least Christian compassion to the victims of sexual abuse by priests. They are more interested in the safety of the criminals than the children who have suffered their abuse.
Organizations like the Voice of the Faithful and Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests have been the only Catholic groups that have responded to the cry for help by the victims. Yet, these organizations are constantly vilified and censored by bishops.
So now the Church figures it can run sweet commercials to touch Catholics who’ve quit the Church.
Please!
My question is why haven’t more Catholics left the Church or at least call their bishops accountable for the crimes that priests have committed against children and adolescents?
If Catholics were loyal to the teachings of the Church, the hierarchy should have been completely disbanded by now in demonstration of Christian compassion toward thousands of children’s suffering.
My advice to all Catholics would be to go to www.Catholicscomehome.org and express your disgust and why you’re not going to come home.
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