Why Does the Catholic Church Still Have Rights in America?

This story is about a court case in which $12.6 million was awarded to sixteen victims of church abuse by priests.

Cardinal Francis George, who is the head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, was quoted as saying:
"My hope is that these settlements will help the survivors and their families begin to heal and move forward.”

Heal? Seriously? How will money help these people? Will it stop the nightmares? Will it stop the insecurities? No.

The article goes on to give statistics from an organization known as “Bishop Accountability” which says that more than 4,000 priests, out of 42,000 total in the US, have been accused of abusing children. Often times, the priests are accused of abusing multiple children.

Further, as I wrote about here, the Catholic church actively pushed any victims, witnesses, and perpetrators to keep quiet about it rather than report it to authorities.

I find it hard to believe that everyone who’s been abused by a priest has publicly made it known. Not only because they tried to hide it, but many who have been abused are embarassed about it and do not want to go thru the emotional stress of bringing it out in the public eye.

But 4,000 out of 42,000 is an insane amount of abuse. That’s ten percent of Catholic clergy in the US! Possibly, probably, more. If you know ten priests at least one of them has abused a child. This is a ridiculous amount of abuse. If a car company was selling a line in which ten percent of the cars on the road blew up spontaneously the car would be pulled and banned from the road.

Why is this organization still allowed in this country? If there was an atheist organization in the US in which 10 percent of the staff was found to be sexually abusing children how long do you think that would last? Inside of a week every building owned by the organization would be burned down and all the known members of the organization would be run out of the country with pitchforks and torches.

I’m sick and tired of the church getting to do what it wants basically without repercussions. I realize that the Catholic church has paid out many, many millions of dollars, but that does not correct this wrong. I think Catholicism should be done away with and banned in any free country.