An interesting note on the catholic Church

[fdesilva]

The whole catholic charity issue =

http://mediationchannel.com/2009/11/16/fallacious-argument-of-the-month-in-pursuit-of-the-red-herring/

IOW, it doesn't matter in the least. It has no bearing whatsoever on the argument over the question posed by the author of the article quoted in th OP:

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?

Acceptable answers:

They don't
It sells papers
Journalists hate catholicism
Misleading question; it isn't a vendetta, it's real news
All journalists are secretly in league with the devil
Because thousands of cases of sexual abuse of children by deranged monsters calling themselves spiritual leaders have been made public after decades (at least) of systematic coverups by catholic leadership going all the way to the pope

All of those answers require cited support by verifiable facts.

Everything else on the subject is just a smokescreen.

Yes I fully agree, as you said before

So Catholics are really, really good people who want to be a positive force in the world. Great. Then it follows that they should have no problem exposing those (particularly their own priests, etc.) who abuse children, along with those who aid and abet them (ie. enable, ie. cover up), regardless of how high up the chain they have to go, and turn them over the the appropriate authorities to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. End of story.

Except for the complimentry bit "realy realy good"  I totally agree with the rest.
However the red herring is not just from me, it is in response  to
statements such as

To me the Catholic Church is an immoral, corporate organization, who only want to take care of themselves and don't give a shit about others. Sure, there are people in that organization that are sociable, charitable and good people, but the Church itself as an institution is evil.

[fdesilva]

That's still not charity.  A company may save the nation a certain amount of money - that doesn't make them a charity.  By your logic, Microsoft for instance would be considered a charity if they offered to pay for a certain percentage of school costs that might otherwise be paid for by tax money.  That can't actually be your argument, right?  

Regardless, it certainly doesn't somehow cancel out the church covering up rampant pedophilia.

Depending on what the company tax is only that percentage can be taken as tax dollers. For example if microsoft pays $1000 to a school, and the company tax is 35% then $350 is from the government and $650 from the pockets of Microsoft. As such it is still charity.

[Davin]

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?

Here is a link: This is one of the problems, not only did the Church know about this guy sexually abusing children, but the church didn't do anything about it. So why "does the media have a vendetta on the Catholic church?" Maybe because the Catholic church knew Murphy was abusing children and didn't do anything about it. I've looked, there is not a single case where an organization as big as the Catholic church knew one of the people under it's employ was sexually abusing children and didn't do anything about it. So in order to even say that the media has some kind of vendetta against the Catholic church, one would need to provide something to show that there is in fact a vendetta. Either by showing a big organization doing the same thing while the media did nothing or the media only covers bad things about the catholic church.

The existence of the media reporting child molesters who aren't Catholic priests would also provide more evidence that the media doesn't have a vendetta against the Catholic church:
Child Molester Covered in the Media
I think we all remember Michael Jackson's trials
1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

So really I don't see the media really taking it out on the Catholic church, at least not as much as some other news items. I see no vendetta or unfair coverage.

[pinkocommie]

That's still not charity.  A company may save the nation a certain amount of money - that doesn't make them a charity.  By your logic, Microsoft for instance would be considered a charity if they offered to pay for a certain percentage of school costs that might otherwise be paid for by tax money.  That can't actually be your argument, right?  

Regardless, it certainly doesn't somehow cancel out the church covering up rampant pedophilia.

Depending on what the company tax is only that percentage can be taken as tax dollers. For example if microsoft pays $1000 to a school, and the company tax is 35% then $350 is from the government and $650 from the pockets of Microsoft. As such it is still charity.

...?

Can someone else explain what just happened here?  Does this conversation keep shifting focus to where fdesilva's responses seem to be arguing against or for something unrelated to what was initially said or am I alone in being utterly confused again?

[Whitney]

That's still not charity.  A company may save the nation a certain amount of money - that doesn't make them a charity.  By your logic, Microsoft for instance would be considered a charity if they offered to pay for a certain percentage of school costs that might otherwise be paid for by tax money.  That can't actually be your argument, right?  

Regardless, it certainly doesn't somehow cancel out the church covering up rampant pedophilia.

Depending on what the company tax is only that percentage can be taken as tax dollers. For example if microsoft pays $1000 to a school, and the company tax is 35% then $350 is from the government and $650 from the pockets of Microsoft. As such it is still charity.

Please try to formulate coherent sentences and not go along rabbit trails when posting.

[fdesilva]

That's still not charity.  A company may save the nation a certain amount of money - that doesn't make them a charity.  By your logic, Microsoft for instance would be considered a charity if they offered to pay for a certain percentage of school costs that might otherwise be paid for by tax money.  That can't actually be your argument, right?  

Regardless, it certainly doesn't somehow cancel out the church covering up rampant pedophilia.

On the issue of the catholic church charity: The catholic church is a charity because all the work it does, is funded by donors.
It's charity, does not cancel out the pedophilia and the other bad done by some of its members.

[Sophus]

Charitable acts by a company does not make it a charity. This includes Religion Inc. Although, granted, they can establish one on the side. But does the Catholic church even have something like that? Don't you just tithe and they divide it however they please?

[Whitney]

The catholic church is a charity because all the work it does, is funded by donors.

That would make it a charity case; not necessarily charitable.

If I could convince 20 people to each donate 20 grand a year to me and I survived on that money that would not automatically make the actions I did while using donated money charitable.  I could however convince the government that I am a church leader of the newly founded Church of Whitney and not have to pay taxes on that money...it's very easy to get church status, you just declare it.

[Sophus]

Since we're "link-happy": http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/next_on_the_docket_nun-rapers.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogs%2Fpharyngula+%28Pharyngula%29&utm_content=Twitter
It's not just children many Catholic priests have been abusing.

[Tom62]

..
Here in Germany alone, the catholic and protestant churches receive 14 billion Euro (19 billion dollar) per year from the government (thru church taxes, grants, etc.).  Interesting enough most schools, kindergartens, old folks homes, hospitals, etc.  that call themselves Catholic or Protestant receive only 6% of their finances from the church, the remaining money comes straight out of the taxpayer's pocket. .

All of that church tax is from the members of the Church. A person has the freedom to leave the church, in which case they do not pay it. The Government collects this tax, for a fee. So the tax is not government money, but the money of the commumity of believers in the church, which they give to the church freely.
As I said before on this thread, while it is more formalised in Germany, its no different to other countries where
If you go to a catholic service on a sunday, you would find that there is 2 collection. One collection is for the upkeep of the church (fancy cloths, food for cleargy,buidings etc) and the 2nd for the other charities. Now if the people giving this money don't have a problem with it why should any one else?"
Please read the following

[/quote]
From the 14 billion Euro that the German churches receive every year, only 3,5 billion comes from church taxes. The remaining 10,5 billion is paid by the State. That amount doesn't even include the grants and subventions that the churches receive for "their" social work. I don't mind that people pay their church taxes. With that money the churches should be able to live comfortably. What I find offending is that the churches gets loads of additional money that doesn't come from the church goers, but from the entire community. Even if you are an atheist, a Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim, your taxpayer's money goes to the Christian churches and the amount that you pay is twice as high as the official church tax.

[PaulKing]

The "Jewish" Sam Miller who Catholics love to spam (defending the Catholic Church) is a liar and joke.

Sam Miller made up totally false figures in his speech (and admitted it later): -

“Now let me give you some figures that you as Catholics should know and remember. For example, research by Richard Blackman at Fuller Theological Seminary shows that 12% of the 300 Protestant clergy surveyed admitted to sexual intercourse with a parishioner; 38% acknowledged other inappropriate sexual contact. In a 1990 study by the United Methodist Church, 41.8% of clergywomen reported unwanted sexual behavior by a colleague; 17% of laywomen said that their own pastors had sexually harassed them. Phillip Jenkins concludes in his book “Pedophiles and Priests” that while 1.7% of the Catholic clergy has been found guilty of pedophilia, 10% of Protestant ministers have been found guilty of pedophilia.“

The REAL figures are 5.4% (http://www.bishop-accountability.org) of Catholic Priests and a fraction of one per cent of Methodists.

He later apologized when questioned.

It also turns out that Sam Miller is Jewish by blood but is a Christian who has donated to a number of Christian Causes including the Salvation Army. Not one penny has he given to any Catholic charity or cause.

He is a publicity hound who made up all the facts and figures in his speech.

None are factual.

Typical of Catholic Smoke and Mirror con tricks.