Is Jesus in agreement with you, that it's not "cool" to expose the faults of those who profess to serve God ? For example, why did Jesus condemn the religious leaders in his day, telling them that "truly I say to you that the tax collectors and the harlots are going ahead of you into the kingdom of God. For John came to you in a way of righteousness, but you did not believe him. However, the tax collectors and the harlots believed him, and you, although you saw this, did not feel regret afterwards so as to believe him" ?(Matt 21:31, 32)
Or when just three days before his death at the hands of the same religious leaders, why did Jesus scathingly condemn the religious leaders for putting themselves on a "pedestal", saying: "The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the seat of Moses....Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! because you shut up the kingdom of the heavens before men; for you yourselves do not go in, neither do you permit those on their way in to go in" ?(Matt 23:2, 13)
Like the scribes and Pharisees, the Catholic Church has seated itself in the "seat of Moses", blocking entry into the "kingdom of the heavens" by teaching doctrines and traditions that have made the "word of God invalid."(Matt 15:6) Additionally, the serious issue of pedophile priests has been hidden or downplayed. In the Huffington Post of April 1, 2010, it stated that the Vatican has been aware of the evidence of pedophilia priests for decades, with even Pope Paul VI having a meeting with Gerald M.C. Fitzgerald, head of a Roman Catholic order that specialized in the treatment of pedophile priests nearly fifty years ago. This meeting was followed up with a letter recommending the removal of pedophile priests from the ministry, dated August 27, 1963. In this letter, "the head of the New Mexico-based Servants of the Holy Paraclete tells the Pope he recommends removing pedophile priests from active ministry and strongly urges defrocking repeat offenders."
Hence, the Vatican has well aware of the pedophilia problem. In fact, this problem was clearly known many years earlier, for in 1917, the Catholic Church formulated a "canon law (that) criminalized sexual abuse of minors." And in 1922, the Catholic Church "penned a document outlining detailed procedures for handling such cases. In 1962 that document was updated and has been used in many of the lawsuits by victims against U.S.diocese and the Vatican itself."
The article further said that "The letter (released in 2007 at a hearing in Los Angeles), written by the Rev. Gerald M.C. Fitzgerald, appears to have been drafted at the request of the pope and summarizes Fitzgerald's thoughts on problem priests after his Vatican visit. The letter echoes other Fitzgerald writings about wayward priests.
Several news organizations, including the AP, reported last year that Fitzgerald was intent on buying an island where priests attracted to men and boys could be segregated, and even made a $5,000 down payment on a Caribbean island for that purpose. "It is for this class of rattlesnake I have always wished an island retreat, but even an island is too good for these vipers," he wrote an acquaintance in 1957.
In 1960, he sent two priests from the Paracletes to the island of Tortola to investigate the location – but his dream of an island monastery dedicated to trouble priests ended when the new archbishop of Santa Fe overruled him, his successor, Rev. Joseph McNamara, has said in an affidavit."
It additionally says that "Fitzgerald opens the five-page letter by thanking the pope for an audience the day before and says he is summarizing his thoughts at the pope's request on the "problem of the problem priest" after 20 years working to treat them. He tells Paul VI that treatment for priests who have succumbed to "abnormal, homosexual tendencies" should include psychiatric, as well as spiritual, counseling – but goes on to warn about the dangers of leaving those individuals in ministry.
Mr. Gerald Fitzgerald wrote: "Personally, I am not sanguine (confident) of the return of priests to active duty who have been addicted to abnormal practices, especially sins with the young. Where there is indication of incorrigibility, because of the tremendous scandal given, I would most earnestly recommend total laicization ("give control of it to the lay community", Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2005)," he wrote. "I say 'total' ... because when these men are taken before civil authority, the non-Catholic world definitely blames the discipline of celibacy for the perversion of these men."
The letter proves that Vatican officials knew about clergy abuse decades ago. The Sunday Telegraph of Sydney, New South Wales reported in 1994: “The Australian Catholic Church has taken out a multimillion dollar insurance policy to protect itself against claims of sexual abuse by priests,... We admit it goes on,” said a Catholic bishop in Melbourne, Australia. He asserts that such extensive insurance coverage is normal “for that kind of offence.” According to a support group for the victims, sexual abuse by the clergy is more widespread than the church admits. A spokesman for the group said he believes the church’s focus is more on protecting the clergy than helping the victims. He added that the message “at the very core of the church’s documents is, don’t tell the truth.”
Would Jesus overlook such gross disregard for the moral principles that God's Word stipulates ? Jesus set the precedent by scathingly condemning the religious leaders during his final moments before his death for their conduct. The apostle Paul wrote that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, and tomorrow."(Heb 13:8) The nation of Israel was corrupt in the first century, during Jesus tenure of 3 1/2 years as God's "servant."(Matt 12:18) So likewise is the Catholic Church. And what has been brought forth is just the "tip of the iceberg", for over the centuries since it's inception in the fourth century C.E., the Catholic Church has piled up mountains of evidence of atrocities, even burning individuals at the stake for merely possessing a Bible.
Revelation 18:5, 7 sums up the matter, as part of worldwide empire of false religion, Babylon the Great, that the Catholic Church has "sins (that ) have massed together clear up to heaven, and God has called her acts of injustice to mind....To the extent that she lived in shameless luxury, to that extent give her torment and mourning. For in her heart she keeps saying, ' I sit a queen, and I am no widow, and I shall never see mourning."
