Posted On: June 24, 2008, 8:01 am CDT

Posted By: BGD

1. Anyone who thinks that the wave of scandal has caused changes that have eliminated the problem of priests molesting children, think twice. Google Daniel McCormack from Chicago. The difference between what happened years ago and what has happened with Fr. McCormack is that the church now knows that its old approaches were unacceptable. It wouldn't have learned its lesson witrhout the pain of having to pay out some serious dough. If it hadn't cost them money, they would have continued to handle it the same way they did in the 60's and 70's. After all those people stopped complaining. They got over it and went on with their lives .... or did they.

2. The suggestion that people are only stepping forward because there is big money involved is the kind of idea that insurance people would come up with -- the numbers of lawsuits are like people getting onto a crashed bus to claim that they were a passenger when the bus crashed. If "fraud" were an issue and there was even one case which was fraudulent, that case would have been bandied in the press about by the church and their insurers and defense counsel to raise a stink of suspicion about all of the claimants and to deter more claims by raising the idea in the heads of the victims that they might be called liars yet again.

3. The numbers coming forward are not about an insurance gold rush, but a reflection of the anger that people feel after finding about the scope of the problem, the church's knowledge of it, and their complicity in allowing the molesters access to children again and again.

4. A swift kick the arse -- perhaps people should rub dirt on it also?!?!? So much for the ideas of healing and compassion ......