Religious Arguing/News here---->

[HairOfTheDog]

He did not indicate, however, whether he plans to take forceful action to hold bishops accountable for protecting children or to sanction them when they fall short.

I'm a big fan of Pope Francis, I hold him in high regard & I'm very worried he won't do the right thing. He needs to do this ^^^^^^. Now. Don't waste any more time. I don't want to stop being a fan.

There's too much politicking in the business of religion and too much religion in the business of politicking these days, if you ask me.

Pope Francis is being pulled in different directions in terms of doing "what's right" about the rampant global child abuse perpetrated by Catholic priests and nuns.  

He's  got old school 'conservative' higher-ups in the church and congregation who STILL blame homosexuality for pedophile priests.  Seriously.  They seem to think if you screen priests and get rid of the gay ones, problem solved. 

The general public, however, is not so ignorant as to equate homosexuality with pedophilia and expects more than 'sorry' and 'we'll look into it' yet again.  Much more.  There are reasons agnosticism and atheism are becoming more common; this ongoing systemic child abuse by the Catholic Church is one of those reasons, I suspect.

Anyway, Francis is saying all the right things.  He's harshly condemned the offenders, he's harshly condemned the Catholic Church itself for allowing it to happen and not doing enough to stop it for so fucking long, and he says actions will be taken.  

I hope he's willing and able to take very aggressive action to assist the victims, to allow the offenders to be prosecuted by courts of law instead of protected by the Church, and to implement preventative screening measures to minimize future occurrences.  If not, I hope the Catholic Church crumbles.