On 09/08/2020 17:59, rbowman wrote:
On 08/09/2020 01:05 AM, T wrote:

The though process of Roman church baffles me at times.

In aggregate though, they are a force for good.

otoh, the thought process of Protestants always baffles me. The 33,000
different denominations is probably overstated but there are a lot when
you count all the unaffiliated groups. My wife's church shopping had
more to do with finding a cozy group rather than any doctrinal matters.

Even the mainstream denominations are splintered. The Evangelical
Lutheran Church has no use for the Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin
Synod thinks both of them are on the highway to hell. Individual ECLA
congregations don't even agree.

At least the Catechism of the Catholic Church states clearly what a
Catholic believes, what they don't believe, and what is dealer's choice.
For example if you want to believe the earth was created 6000 years ago
and people rode around on dinosaurs, go for it. Not many Catholics do
afaik, but it's not heretical.


They seriously need to dump the homosexual
priesthood and turn all predictors over to the
secular authorities.

Maybe I was lucky but none of the priests I had contact with were
predators. I will say the Catholic Church is a large target and the
belief is it has a lot of money. If the pastor of Billie Bob's Church of
the Risen Christ has short eyes the flock beats the **** out of him and
he slithers down the road to some other store front operation. Nobody is
keeping score. If a teacher or a day care worker is a pervert the
situation is handled and seldom makes more than the local paper if that.
There is no organization structure shuffling bad apples around.

Cynically, there's no money either. The lure of a big payday can help
bring back those repressed memories of being molested by Father Frank 40
years ago. That's no different than some of the people jumping on the
#MeToo bandwagon.Â* Is there a problem? Yes, definitely. Is there the
potential for financial or political gains? You betcha.

The Catholic church is the richest religion in the world.

The Catholic Church owns some of the greatest art works ever made. It
also has vast gold deposits and billions of dollars in assets. It also
earns a significant amount of income from the tourism sector as the
Vatican is considered an independent city-state. It also has more than a
billion members around the world.
They also don't have to show their books.

There are no taxes, no restrictions on the import or export of funds,
and no customs or excise duties payable in the Vatican City. Employees
of the Vatican pay no income tax and no customs duty on gasoline or
goods that they buy in the Vatican.