I confess that, as a critic of religion, I have paid too little
attention to the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Frankly,
it always felt unsportsmanlike to shoot so large and languorous a fish
in so tiny a barrel. This scandal was one of the most spectacular "own
goals" in the history of religion, and there seemed to be no need to
deride faith at its most vulnerable and self-abased. Even in retrospect,
it is easy to understand the impulse to avert one's eyes:
Just imagine a pious mother and father sending their beloved child to the Church of a Thousand Hands for spiritual instruction, only to have him raped and terrified into silence by threats of hell. And then imagine this occurring to tens of thousands of children in our own time -- and to children beyond reckoning for over a thousand years. The spectacle of faith so utterly misplaced, and so fully betrayed, is simply too depressing to think about.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/bringing-the-vatican-to-j_b_571088.html
Just imagine a pious mother and father sending their beloved child to the Church of a Thousand Hands for spiritual instruction, only to have him raped and terrified into silence by threats of hell. And then imagine this occurring to tens of thousands of children in our own time -- and to children beyond reckoning for over a thousand years. The spectacle of faith so utterly misplaced, and so fully betrayed, is simply too depressing to think about.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/bringing-the-vatican-to-j_b_571088.html