Thursday, April 15, 2010

Proud to be Catholic

My mother emailed this to me. I thought it important to share.


Proud of being Catholic

(These are excerpts of an article written by Sam Miller, prominent Cleveland Jewish businessman - NOT Catholic.)

Why would newspapers carry on a vendetta on one of the most important
institutions that we have today in the United States, namely the Catholic
Church?

Do you know - the Catholic Church educates 2.6 million students everyday at
the cost to that Church of 10 billion dollars, and a savings on the other
hand to the American taxpayer of 18 billion dollars. The graduates go on to
graduate studies at the rate of 92%.

The Church has 230 colleges and universities in the U.S. with an enrollment
of 700,000 students.

The Catholic Church has a non-profit hospital system of 637 hospitals, which
account for hospital treatment of 1 out of every 5 people - not just
Catholics - in the United States today.

But the press is vindictive and trying to totally denigrate in every way the
Catholic Church in this country. They have blamed the disease of pedophilia
on the Catholic Church, which is as irresponsible as blaming adultery on the
institution of marriage.

At this point in our original posting of his letter, Mr. Miller cited statistics indicating rates of sexual misconduct among Protestant Ministers, one of which claimed that "10% of the Protestant ministers have been found guilty of pedophilia." The Reverend Rob Pollock of Vancouver B.C. showed us that this statistic was false. We thank the Rev. Pollock, and have removed the entire paragraph which compared rates of sexual misconduct among Catholic priests and Protestant Ministers. We apologize. The Reverend Pollock's email, which alerted us to the error, and which traces the roots of the erroneous statistic to an article in Sojourners magazine, is posted in the comments section below. To continue with Mr. Miller's letter:

A study of American priests showed that most are happy in the priesthood and
find it even better than they had expected, and that most, if given the
choice, would choose to be priests again in face of all this obnoxious PR
the church has been receiving.

The Catholic Church is bleeding from self-inflicted wounds. The agony that
Catholics have felt and suffered is not necessarily the fault of the Church.
You have been hurt by a small number of wayward priests that have probably
been totally weeded out by now.

Walk with your shoulders high and you head higher. Be a proud member of the
most important non-governmental agency in the United States. Then remember
what Jeremiah said: 'Stand by the roads, and look and ask for the ancient
paths, where the good way is and walk in it, and find rest for your souls'.
Be proud to speak up for your faith with pride and reverence and learn what
your Church does for all other religions. Be proud that you're a Catholic.

~~^j^~~
Thanks be to God!!!

The above has been edited to include a statement offered by Father John Malloy, SDB in his blog A Shepherd's Voice. Thank you, Father John. Thank you, too, to Reverend Robert Pollock for calling this to my attention.

10 comments:

  1. Cathy all Catholics should read this message, good for your mother for sending it to you.
    Sexual abuse is wrong.period. Hurting others and their reputitions is wrong.period.
    So many people only hear a little bit of the story then rush out to embellish it, which is sad. Thank you for sharing my friend...:-) Hugs

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  2. What beautiful words, Cathy.
    I'm so happy you posted this for all of us to reflect upon.

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  3. We've had some first hand experience with this sore subject, but we all felt that the problem always was the fact that Church leaders never really looked into it, we know that problem priests were just shifted from one parish to another to continue the abuse pattern. I know it's popular today to hate on the Catholic Church but hatred toward the Catholic Church is not the answer. The abusers need help, their victims need help. That is all I have to say on that subject.
    No matter the problems of the Catholic Church and the problems that have touched our lives, I have ALWAYS felt so Blessed to have been raised in the Catholic Faith. And I NEVER felt that the bad outweighed the good.
    And I will always believe the Words of my Lord ~ "The gates of Hell will not prevail."
    I believe the Church is being Cleansed.

    Great post, Cathy. Thanks for sharing!
    Love and Prayers,
    Eileen

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  4. Wonderful, I too am Proud to be Catholic!!

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  5. While not Catholic, this is good to see. Given the bias of mainstream media, it is doubtful this will ever be reported there.

    Darryl and Ruth

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  6. Way to go Cathy! Do you mind if I post this too? We should spread it around. Thanks for posting it.

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  7. Great post Cathy! The Catholic religion is not perfect by any means but is there any one who can honestly say that their religion is? Catholics have done a lot of good in this world as your post points out. I too feel blessed that I am a Catholic.

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  8. i have read this and it is so true!

    i know i'm glad to be catholic!

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  9. Not to rain on your parade but...

    The statement "10% of the Protestant ministers have been found guilty of pedophilia" has no basis in fact.

    In his original 2003 speech Mr. Miller cites a July/August 2002 Sojourners article by Rose Marie Berger in which she misinterprets statements from Penn. State Prof. Philip Jenkins regarding sexual abuse by Protestant ministers.

    In the original article Berger writes...
    "Philip Jenkins concludes in his book "Pedophiles and Priests" that while 1.7 percent of Catholic clergy have been found guilty of pedophilia (specifically of boys), 10 percent of Protestant ministers have been found guilty of pedophilia." (This quote is used in Miller's speech)

    To which Philip Jenkins responds (Sept/Oct 2002)...
    "I regret to say that the statement is baloney. I never said it, and it's not true!... Every time this ten percent statement appears attributed to me, I try to debunk it, but these things have a life of their own. I have no idea what the actual proportion of pedophile protestant clergy is, but I would be amazed if it was more than a fraction of one percent."

    Sojourner Article... http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0207&article=020741d

    Sojourners apologized to its readers for passing on erroneous information and revised the article, removing the incorrect and defamatory information. But not before Sam Miller got a hold of it!

    In the interest of honesty and ecumenical respect this post should be edited or removed.

    Your Brother in Christ...
    Rev. Rob Pollock
    Vancouver, BC
    CANADA

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Your insightful comments are appreciated and I want all to feel comfortable and welcome.