Vatican Wash

The top of the RCC hierarchy was interested enough in individual proponents of Liberation Theology to take punitive measures. It is a severe judgment on the RCC’s lack of judgment that child rapist priests were not attended to so stringently.

No matter what he does, he will never wash away the sins of his church.

I’m not sure it counts as self-effacement if you alert the media first and are surrounded by cameras.

There doesn’t need to be a firestorm, especially if you’re at peace with your own decision. It really isn’t anybody’s business except your own.
If the only reason you stick with the Church is keeping peace within the family, it’s possible that there are other family members who are looking to get out from under the burden you are collectively imposing on yourselves.
The Church ought to have been more responsive to the dismay that ordinary believers are experiencing. Instead, Cardinal Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals, complains that the Church is under attack by gossip! New York’s Cardinal Dolan compared the Pope’s suffering with the suffering of Jesus. What gall!
If you continue to stand with these skunks, you encourage them. What are your moral responsiblities here? Surely they’re larger than averting a “firestorm” within your family.

Doesn’t need to be a firestorm? Well, it’s not the dissenter who causes the firestorm, he merely provokes.
Oh, no worries my supporting the church – I’m out (though not because of this scandal), as are 1.75 or 2 of my 3 siblings. I was just making the point that it’s not necessarily easy to “just get out”, not least because of the social pressures.
“It isn’t anybody’s business except your own”. Ha! That’s a laugh riot! In an ideal world where everyone were a rational actor, you’d be right. But we don’t live in that world. One reason why this is not true, of course, is that for one to leave the Church, one has to have found some fault with it. Perhaps some theological fault. In that case, the ones left behind become outraged because of the thinness of their own faith. You know what they (Edward Abbey) say:
“Fantastic doctrines (like Christianity or Islam or Marxism) require unanimity of belief. One dissenter casts doubt on the creed of millions. Thus the fear and the hate; thus the torture chamber, the iron stake, the gallows, the labor camp, the psychiatric ward.”
If you aren’t leaving for theological reasons – then you must be confusing the “true church” with that of the hierarchy, who are merely god’s imperfect vessels. One shouldn’t leave for the wrong reasons, after all, you’ll go to hell if you do!
Of course another reason not to leave might be that you’re so deluded that you believe that all those priests were seduced by those children into having sex! (I have an uncle, an optometrist, who believes that)!
…Anyway…
Cardinal Sodano and Dean are mere pikers! I couldn’t believe the remarks of the pope’s preacher (Raniero Cantalamessa), on Good Friday, no less:
“likened accusations against the pontiff and the Catholic church in sex abuse scandals in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere to “collective violence” suffered by the Jews.” (AP)
Talk about tone deafness…