Here's a 660 Million Dollar Hypothetical

Here's a little hypothetical. Say you have an organization that, for decades, aided, abetted, and covered up the rape of children by adults. An organization that ostensibly caters to the poor and disadvantaged - in short, the meek. And yet that organization, once it is found out, is able to pay, just from the coffers of one of its city branches, 660 million dollars to settle lawsuits (leaving billions left in its coffers) and none of its leaders and almost none of the perpetrators of rape serve a single day in jail.

How likely would that hypothetical organization continue to exist as an organization (as opposed to being disbanded, sued into oblivion, and chased down with pitchforks and torches from all of the thousands of child-rape victims and their families) if it the organization was NOT the Catholic Church (or any other Christian Church)? I'd say zero. Yet somehow, not only do they still exist, they are basically forgiven and the whole thing is glossed over. Why aren't there people calling for the abolishment of the organization for this horrible criminal activity? Why is it not shouted from the rooftops? Why? Because it is religion - more importantly, Christian religion, so it gets a free pass.

This just disgusts me so much I want to scream. As far as I'm concerned, the Church should be disbanded for this one reason alone. This is not about "religious freedom" - this is about a criminal organization that used its clout and its special position to cover up the RAPE OF CHILDREN for DECADES. I'm sorry, if you do that, you forfeit any claim to exist as an organization. I think all of their assets should be confiscated and their leaders jailed. If they weren't a Christian religious organization, I think this would already have happened. Can you imagine some corporation that did the same thing still being in business today? I think not. Not a chance in hell.

Sure, there are plenty of innocent Catholics - the vast majority, in fact. But this isn't about them. This is about the organization itself. The one that ostensibly is about helping the poor that has billions in assets and cares more about protecting its image than prosecuting child-rapists. When Enron went down, a lot of innocent employees lost their jobs. But Enron still deserved to go down. I think the time has come for the Catholic Church to go down. Not that I'm exactly a fan of any other churches. But this thing just disgusts me so much. And yet life goes on and they get to keep their great moral pedestal and get to keep on telling atheists that we have no morals even after they acted as a big cover for child-rapists.

And it annoys me so much whenever there is some show on ethics or morality or some issue in the news and they bring in the Catholic priest, as if putting on a funny dark suit gives one any moral authority at all - might as well bring in the garbage collector - at least that is someone who is familiar with the world. Why should belief in a sky-fairy from a book of fairy tales suddenly make one an expert on morality, particularly where the book itself contains endorsement of some rather morally questionable conduct?

Ugh. Ok, rant over. At least I got one post done I wanted today. The other dozen will just have to wait.