A big dioceses ( Pittsburgh) recently declared bankrupcy
also in Pennsylvania. Yeah- money to LAWYERS
what about therapy to 🧸 VICTIMS 🧸 ; ?
Yeah , we did something - now we can collectively
forget !

There's talk that the Diocese of Ogdensburg, too, may be filing for bankruptcy protection soon. My father is Catholic and attends in this diocese, and he agrees that the abuse of children was awful. On the other hand, he maintains that the Catholic Church is a force for good and that the world would be worse off without it, and he talks about how the money going to the victims is excessive because it won't correct the problem. My response is that, yes, there's no amount of money that will correct the harm done to those children, but it's important that there be a significant penalty for the organization to pay, because otherwise they and others will continue to turn a blind eye, cover up abuse, and allow these transgressions to continue. The penalties need to be deep and painful, or it won't matter. To the point about the good the Church does, I call bullshit. People do good works; the Church is only a venue. Good people will continue to step forward, organize for those less fortunate, and provide charity as needed. And it can be done without so much administrative overhead, without supporting an organization that enforces a power hierarchy that claims divine authority. I know many priests (I attended a college that was also a seminary) and the majority are good people, but anyone in the last 15 to 20 years who joined the priesthood did so knowing that there was a serious problem in the Church, knew that they were joining and supporting an organization that engaged in heinous activities and used its power and influence to continue to do so, and knew that the official position of the Church was that the child molestations and subsequent cover-ups were wrong not strictly because of the harm it did to those children and their families, but because it had undermined the reputation of the Church, affecting membership and attendance and discrediting their moral authority. Time and again, that was their message; even if they felt like that was part of the problem, how stupid of the pope and cardinals and bishops to state it so blatantly when making public statements, but I'm so glad they couldn't help themselves and revealed what was truly most important to them: holding onto power. So, no, I don't care that these institutions of faux morality are crumbling. Good riddance!