Pope seeks to heal a 500 year old split

While the press continues to focus on the sex abuse scandal. Yes, it has been a dark cloud over the Church, and yes the Church continues to react in ways that toss gasoline on the smoldering embers of righteous anger over the disastrous legacy of abuse. But facts are facts, and in the end, the Church is no more a beacon of molestation than the rest of society that has gradually embraced the 19th century 'it's time to let sex out of the bag' approach to living.

One interesting thing, and something that makes it tough to honestly adopt the good guy/bad guy framework that the media would dearly love Catholics to accept, is the makeup of the protest. Much of the article goes to show the numbers involved in the protest, how peaceful it was, and how it casts such a shadow on the Pope's 'controversial' (note the scare quotes) visit. While there are victims of the abuse protesting, it is also mentioned that many protesting seem more interesting in the areas with which they disagree with Church teaching. In at least one sentence:

Across town, abuse victims and demonstrators opposed to the pope's stance against homosexuality, abortion and using condoms to fight AIDS

It almost seems as if some of the victims themselves are protesting Church teaching, rather than simply speaking out at the Church's abysmal handling of the crisis. All of this to show the difficulty that has plagued the scandal and its handling. For while the Church erred big time, and justice still appears to be slipping through some pretty important fingers, it can't be missed that at least a fair portion of the righteous indignation aimed at the Church has little to do with concern over the victims or even the crime, and much more to do with the all important calls for conformity that the modern progressive movement demands from every quarter of the globe.


Update: The host of a CNN media watch segment slammed a New England paper for running a story about Muslims on 9/11, then apologizing the next day. Why, the host asked, must we connect every story about Islam to 9/11? The question could also be asked why networks like CNN must connect every story about Catholicism to the priest abuse scandal, or any story about America to slavery and discrimination in its past?