Fair enough.
But really, if a Pope believed in God, or, any kind of just anything, he'd take care of all these problems they have. If I'd been Pope, this definately would've been taken care of. Then again, I think being Pope goes against the basic idea of catholic/christianity/abrahamic belief. I might be mistake, especially since I can't find it, but I once heard/read that more people would listen to the Pope before they'd listen to Jesus. Like, if Jesus came infront of everyone, walked on water, showed everyone the holes in his hands, and kick Satan in the dick, then told everyone to eat fish...
and then the Pope to eat waffles.
Like, 80% of them would eat waffles. Which, definately makes being the Pope... sorta like being Pharaoh, actually. Holy crap!

Pope = Pharaoh. I have no idea where I'm goin' with this, but, yeah. Tyrant alert!

I'm not really sure where you're going with that either but you're pretty much right. This is the problem. When you have leaders who are completely unaccountable for their actions because of their "infallability", they've got a blank check to do whatever the hell they want and get away with it. It's no different than the way a lot of people treat our law enforcement officers. In the eyes of a lot of people, law enforcement officers are in the same category as clergymen, to the point that people actually believe that you have to follow any and every order a law enforcement officer gives you. To the point where people give up their rights WILLINGLY because they trust that these people won't take advantage of them.

Like the patriot act. It's curious how this story shows up around Easter, good timing!

So why don't they do some kind of psychology test, to make sure officers aren't power hungry, or something? Can't they just let purely just people in? I mean, there has to be at least some people who actually do have a sense of justice...

You're assuming that there's some morally-right group that could make those decisions? That's the problem. Corruption starts from the top. Who is to say who is or isn't "purely just"? And even if someone claims to be able to determine as much, who is to say that they themselves are "purely just" and wont just let a bunch of corrupt people have the power?

Down the chain, someone has to be truly just for the rest of the powers beneath them to be just. Just as corruption starts from the top, the opposite is true. Except humans are inherently corrupt. A lot of people remedy this by claiming that at the top is God, who is obviously "purely just." Except if God doesn't exist, the opposite is true (that a human, susceptible to corruption and sin, is at the top and naturally the lower powers follow suit.) Which is exactly why religion is so dangerous. It gives this divine label to God, or Allah, or whoever else, but in reality they don't exist and some corrupt, or at the very least ignorant, human is calling the shots.*

*Edit: And while they're calling the shots, they're hiding behind a facade that they're actually doing the bidding of God, and anything they say is really the word of God. And thus, they are infallible.

Someone who watches too much Kamen Rider.
Get somebody who has a stupidly strong belief in humanity, love, and justice. Religion plays only 1/100th of a role in this.
I mean, to find someone purely just, all you have to do is get a bunch of people together and find the one good thing they all agree on, right? I mean, even though it's still controversial, right and wrong is sort of a natural thing, for most people.
Stealing from a poor person, who simply had bad luck/chance = wrong.
Steal from a rich person who hasn't done a thing in his life and has plenty of money to give around = Robin Hood.
In my opinion. But, like always, somebody's going to break in and kick my logic in the nuts any minute now. Either that, or get surprised by me being right about something once every 1000 posts.

But you're missing the point, you can't just "get somebody who has a stupidly strong belief in humanity, love, and justice." To find such a person, you would need to have such a person to even judge them as such. You're basing "right" and "wrong" far too much on your Self. In general, I don't think there really is such a thring as truly right or wrong, as far as morals go, because ultimately morals are defined by humans who are the ones who need the morals. And unfortunately, human nature seems to tend toward corruption, and in the most dangerous way where people tend to think that what they are doing is RIGHT (because, just like you, they're thinking of right and wrong in regards to their own opinions, or maybe even to the opinion of the majority, neither of which are a real gauge of morality (if there is even such a thing.)

It's like the chicken and the egg, almost. Which came first, the rules, or the rule-breakers who made the rules? Or something like that anyway. I'm kinda brain-dead at the moment.

I guess that makes sense... but, if a bunch of people got together and made rules, it would work, right? Multiple perspectives, all discussing what it was... at least, that way, there's a chance. Wait, I think that was the original constitution, huh? Mmm...
So, looks like we all dug ourselfs into a hole of fail, huh?

You do know that sex crimes in the Catholic Church goes waaaaay back. I read a pretty interesting article on Cracked about fucked up Popes. Read about something called The Feast of Chestnuts (I think that's right). It was rather insane, especially given how the Church condemned sex for anyone within the clergy.

And yesterday some priest actually tried to liken the whole sex scandal to anti-semitism. Anti-semitism of all fucking things! That's like trying to liken a parent spanking their child for misbehaving to a Southern white plantation owner whipping a slave for being sick. It doesn't work.

Indeed. Just because we don't hold their clergy to the same standards that they do, does not mean we are "anti-catholic". My stance on the issue is the same as any true Catholic person's should be, IMO. Get rid of the corruption behind the religion. If nothing else, the true Catholics should be screaming for these people to get out, because they're making the religion as a whole look bad.

Without a doubt. Infact, how come nobody has said what you just said, yet? Someone should be letting them know that...

Because you don't understand many hardcore Catholics. They will defend their religion til the very bitter end. My mom and most of my family defend their religion hard because they're afraid if they don't, then they'll be just as bad as the big ol' bad Muslims.

If they want to defend their religion, then maybe they should put up some nicer shields! Really. You shouldn't HAVE to defend it, if you set it up right! If someone speaks up, the church can see some nice changes, and probably have a few good years. But, I guess it's too important to make an ass out of every member, instead of just fixing the problem. That's like going and buying a new computer over one virus, instead of running a scan. Well... not exactly, but you get what I mean, right?

It's the nature of the beast. You can't admit that your church has openly allowed this sort of thing. You can't admit that your church's ultimate leader, the Pope almighty himself, allowed that stuff to happen. They are perfect in every way possible. Anything else is blasphemy.

Build him a pyramid while you're at it. :weird:

The problem is that Catholocism claims that the Pope is human and fallible, but when he speaks from the Chair of Saint Peter, anything he says or does is infallible. It's crazy.

I've never understood that either, even from a younger age.

I did. I was a Catholic apologist. It all made sense some how.

I just couldn't imagine you defending catholicism. It's amazing how brainwashed they must have made you growing up. They suppressed your homosexuality etc. for a while it seems.

Kagom was a straight Catholic boy when he joined these forums.