Name:   MartiniMan - Subject:   The Pope Has Interesting Comments Date:   9/12/2017 8:40:19 AM

Wix, your take on the Catholic Church, while not that uncommon among Protestants, is wrong.  The Church is not in a "major decline".  In fact the Church continues to grow worldwide.  Since 1970 the Catholic Church has doubled in size and now has close to 1.3 billion members worldwide.  Catholicism is on the decline in Europe but that is because they are turning away from God, not just from the Catholic Church.  Just look at mostly Protestant UK for a good example of the decline in religiosity. 

As for your crack about priests, you do realize that the vast majority of the abuse cases happened decades ago when homosexual men infiltrated the priesthood and have done so much damage from within, right?  Regardless, the incidence of abuse by Catholic priests as a percentage is actually lower than the general population, including those in Protestant ministry. Look it up as there have been a number of very credible studies done on this issue.  No doubt the abuse was horrific and the response of many Bishops was awful at best and criminal at worst.  News flash, any organization composed of sinners is prone to these kind of issues, including Protestant churches.

As for the reformation continuing today, if you mean that we now have 30,000 plus Protestant sects and growing I suppose you are right. If you think that kind of division and differing theology is a good thing then this isn't an issue.  Meanwhile the Catholic Church marches on with unchanged basic tenets of the faith since its creation 2,000 years ago by Christ.  No wonder he prayed for unity knowing what man would do. 

There are plenty of reasons to critique Pope Francis without resorting to false narratives and the smearing of hundreds of thousands of faithful priests and consecrated that have given up everything to spread the Gospel and have never and would never abuse children.  We will never rid the world of sin and people will continue to fall short of God's desire for holiness.