So recently I saw this video.

And it made me mad. Among other things, Dennis Hastert could get away with child molestation because of the Roman Catholic Church. (Now technically, I don’t know that that’s a line of causation that we can accurately draw, but work with me here.)

I dug a little deeper and found this article, and this one, and some others, and I got to the point where I could confirm to my satisfaction that the Church was obstructing justice in at least three states: Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania. (I missed New Jersey and Delaware, for some reason – will have to hit those later.)

And because I live in a democracy, where you write letters to the editor and letters to your Congressperson if you have something to say (and because at the time I was feeling rarely [for these days] optimistic that someone would actually give a damn about what I have to say), I thought, I’ll write a letter. I’m not Catholic – there’s no other way for me to affect the Catholic Church – but I can write a letter.

I did some more searching and found this list of Catholic bishops in the US, and I found the Archdioceses of Philadelphia, Hartford, and New York. I went to their websites, found contact forms or emails, and submitted this:

To whom it may concern:

I understand that the Roman Catholic Church has been blocking efforts by state lawmakers to reform the statute of limitations covering child sexual abuse cases so that justice can be served in the older cases. I’m not sure who individually is responsible for the obstruction, so please pass these comments on to whoever made the decision to fight these changes.

How dare you. How dare you insert yourselves into the American political process without paying taxes. How dare you subvert the judicial system. You claim to care about good and morality and justice, but you don’t. You only care about yourselves. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

I was raised Catholic and have no intention of calling myself a Catholic ever again (for this and other reasons not to be discussed in this letter). My parents are still Catholic, despite the fact that the Roman Catholic Church does not deserve their allegiance, and at their current stage of life I do not expect that they have the strength to leave the Church, much as I wish they would.

I’m a blogger, and I speak out against the Catholic Church on a regular basis. If you care to visit my blog and see for yourself, it is located at louiseparelobinske.wordpress.com. If you want to tell me that your archdiocese will now do the right thing and stop obstructing justice (i.e. stop opposing SOL reform), I would be happy to publish this on my blog.

I’m a little rusty on my Bible, but didn’t Jesus say something about rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s? The Church is not doing that. You are not respecting civil law or even the spirit of the law. Shame on you.

Sincerely,

Louise Pare-Lobinske

I didn’t see any point in mincing words, clearly. (Some of you may have a problem with the tone I took with them. Should I have been more respectful? Why? That’s just something that some believer came up with to keep us all in line. I will respect them when they deserve respect, and on this issue, they do not deserve it.)

This was a few days ago, and as expected, I have had no response. If there ever is a response, I’ll keep you all posted.

Your turn. What do you think?