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.