Anthony writes: 'there are two basic ways we can respond. We can say, "Thank God I am not like him/them." Or, we can say, "There but for the grace of God go I."'

This false choice precludes many rational responses. Do we really believe some god is up there choosing which ones of us are to become pedophiles and commit these heinous crimes? I would guess that the fast majority of people that believe in god do not believe that god is up there creating pedophiles or--by his grace--preventing certain people becoming pedophiles.

I realize your article is not about this point, but it is this line of thinking that allows religious institutions to get away with these horrible crimes.

Does not the Catholic Church hold itself to be the one true church of the one true God, recognizing no others as valid?

Does this not automatically lead to the conclusion that institutional survival is of the highest priority? Much more so than for other institutions. This institution does not exist to serve, it exists for itself.

I think important historical moments happen when it suddenly becomes impossible to ignore the obvious.

Let's take the first tack, and not the tact--at least, if you are using the common sailing metaphor.

Not much tact in the way the Vatican has been handling this one. It reminds me of all those scenes from the recent film, "The Queen", in which various members of the Royal Family keep demonstrating how they just don't understand how to connect with the way their subjects feel about Diana's death, let alone how to manage a modern image campaign. Did they really believe priestly sexual abuse was confined to the U.S., or at least how to keep the rank and file mum when the lines of fire heat up?

Andy, for those of us who are not religious, "Thank God I am not like them" and "There but for the grace of God go I" are still useful figures of speech. I am reminded of a clip from the 1980s in which a television interviewer thought he'd scored a major coup over Madalyn Murray O'Hair by pointing out that she'd just used a similar phrase — and so she was admitting that she did believe in God after all — either that, or she had no right to that particular idiom. Both of which were of course untrue.

If the phrases are instead rendered "Fortunately, I am not like them" and "How easily such a thing could have happened to me," does your objection still stand?

Yes, those "god" phrases can be just figures of speech, but usually they are used when someone gets hit by a bus, or gets cancer--seemingly random events. Yes, my objection still stands.

The issues here involve mental illness, abuse of power, and institutional corruption. These are hardly random events.

It isn't a matter of throwing stones, or grace and mercy. It's a criminal matter; it's a matter of child abuse and child rape and covering up those criminal acts.

The difference between someone raping children and NOT raping children doesn't come down to the grace of God, nor is it the lack of grace of God which has prevented the Church from preventing these acts or acknowledging that they have occurred or punishing those responsible. The difference is that the Church apparently believes it is above the law. That may be a consequence of it's dictum that IT dispenses the grace of God. The Church has essentially made itself in its own God.

I think that, compared to other scandals such as Watergate to which the Catholic Church's present situation has been compared, the present situation is one that evokes a great deal of emotional reaction, as evidenced by the preceding angry comments. In light of this, the Gospel messages on judgmentalism and righteousness are radical messages indeed.

My perception is that the Church is, for better or worse, motivated by the perception that the sex abuse scandal is being used primarily as ammunition by people who have deep-seated hostility to the church. It's the same mistake made by partisans of all sorts who are reluctant to respond to the mistakes made by their rank and file. The siege mentality created by modern day attack media is not conducive to critical self-reflection, and quite frankly, the story of the two men at the temple doesn't make for a good sound bite.

I have found in my own experience that it is much easier to condemn the perceived faults of others than to look closely at myself. I can see that there would be benefit for people both inside and outside the Church to make the same observation.

Why, of course, it could happen to any of us- we could become the "infallible" leader of a world-wide religion that for ten centuries led the persecution and massacres of the Jews, wrote the book on torturing to extract false confessions and conversions, and in my lifetime was responsible for making the use of condoms illegal in the city of Chicago.

Well, there but for the Grace of God, go I. I can only wonder at my lucky stars and which turn of fate spared me this ordeal. And, of course, sympathize for the Catholic Church in having been so rudely called to account for its past actions. How could this happen to such well-dressed people!

The simple fact is that the Catholic Church wanted a monopoly on sex. Everything they said or did about the subject inclined to only one end- that you couldn't have sex unless you subscribed to and obeyed all their other doctrines, and even then you'd pay a hefty licensing fee and be closely supervised.

Why, of course, these are exactly the people to whom I would entrust the future of the human race. Who better to entrust with the rules of procreation, by which we continue our existence, than a self-proclaimed oligarchy of lying pedophiles?

Anthony Robinson has totally failed to grasp what is happening. The sheer magnitude and volume of the facts are overcoming the media bias in favor of the Catholic Church that for so long made it possible for them to hide the truth. I feel no need to castigate the Catholics with anything other than their own sorry history, and I certainly feel no need to offer condolences now that they are hoist on their own petard.

Robinson's attempted comparison of what the Church has done and what Tiger Woods or John Edwards has done is cruelly absurd. As far as we know, Tiger Woods didn't rape children, nor did John Edwards. They are jerks. The priests are child rapists.

Would it be considered "judgmentalism" to condemn child rapists who weren't part of an institution? And what about child rapists who were known to a non-religious community they were part of but that community looked the other way and made excuses for them? No. But we're talking about a religious institution here and that somehow changes things.

This is not about God or religion or emotional reaction or media attack mentality. It's about crimes that have been committed and then knowingly covered up. Crimes. And one of the crimes that Robinson doesn't mention is that these priests used threats that secular rapists don't have--like hell and damnation and love of God--in order to keep children quiet. And the Pope and bishops use excuses like the "good of the universal Church" to each other to keep these abuses quiet from the world.

Unless you don't think child rape is a crime and should be punished. If that's the case, and if you're a minister or a psychologist, you should get out of the business.

I think Robinson's point, easily lost here because children were hurt in these cases, is about a difficult kind of personal work aimed at replacing the corrosive blame and indignation toward others that we're tempted to hold onto so that we can feel superior. He isn't saying that crimes shouldn't be punished.

Robinson's column becomes even more outrageous when you read it again, very slowly, to see exactly what he's saying. Because at one time I belonged to the American Nursing Association, and the ANA thinks nurses should have adequate pay, decent working conditions, and the respect that enables them to deliver adequate care and blow the whistle when something's going wrong. Does that make the nurses just like the Catholic Church? I don't think so. Does that make me just like the Catholic Church? I don't think so.

There is a total lack of proportion displayed in Robinson and Lightfoot's comments here. We are not talking about the corrosive feelings of blame and indignation we feel towards our neighbor and his loud lawnmower, which we should overcome for our own sake. We are talking about a huge worldwide organization that, for almost its entire history, kept almost all of its followers in the most abject poverty while church leaders lived in luxury and built themselves palaces. Just a few weeks ago the American bishops were fighting against healthcare reform, perfectly willing to let thousands of Americans die every year because they couldn't afford care- for what? What was their big 'principle'? Even the nuns didn't think they had one.

Or take the Pope's endless whining about how "these things take time". Do you think it takes them 2 years, or 5, or 7, to file for a property tax exemption when they get another piece of property? I certainly don't.

Robinson sets up a false dichotomy and then tells me that because I belonged to the AMA, and attended the U of W, I'm just as flawed as the Catholic Church. I'm not buying it.

This isn't a matter of people feeling superior, or inferior, or just as guilty, or any other personal feeling. It's a matter of disgust at crimes that have been going on for decades and the coverup of those crimes -- all involving the same institutional representatives. Disgust is a reasonable emotion to feel when confronted with this, and in fact has been displayed by some Catholic priests themselves. I'm not a Christian, but I've been told that Jesus also demonstrated something resembling disgust when confronted with inhumanity toward others, especially children. This is not a "cast the first stone" situation and to make it sound as though that were the case is, at the very least, an improper apologia.

Oh, I'm ready to forgive the Catholic Church, Mr. Robinson. Just as soon as they admit to their mountain of wrong doing, cover up, and lying. Then the must feel the full force of the criminal justice system standing on their collective throat--for it is a vengeful god--n'est pas? To forgive when responsibility hasn't been acknowledged is to play the fool, Mr. Robinson. Your argument is weak and unworthy of Crosscut.

I agree that Rev. Robinson's analogy to Tiger Woods et al. is off the mark. If the controversy were simply about priests having consensual adult relationships, then it wouldn't be nearly as agonizing.

But I basically appreciate this article, because in my own considerable experience with this issue, both personal and professional, I think the important question is how to help repair the harm done to children abused by adults, and I think the spiritual values of self-examination and forgiveness have a real place in healing from trauma. In a very basic way the failure is all of ours, as a society. The Catholic Church has committed atrocities but the same is true for any human institution of its power and historical presence; which to my mind brings this back to a human problem in which we all unwittingly participate because as a species we haven't yet figure out how to manage collective power without abusing anyone.

Children who have been abused need adults who are able to listen, which means that the adults need to be somewhat open-minded and not too sure that they already know everything about the issue. A child who is abused by an adult needs to know that not all adults are reactive, violent, and compelled to act on their impulses. Abusive adults are apt to blame the child for the adult's own behavior, and I think blame is rarely helpful to children as they seek healing. Adults need to be sensitive to the reality that abused children are individuals, their experiences are diverse, and their own feelings about what they've been through may range from very clear to very complicated. Some children would find it healing to see their abuser ridden out of town on a rail; others would find it traumatizing and isolating. Healthy anger and outrage definitely have a place, but so do self-reflection and uncertainty.

This is not just a question of healing ourselves or the innocent children- it is also a question about the role of the Catholic Church in a civil society.

"The Catholic Church has committed atrocities but the same is true for any human institution of its power and historical presence..." Which power they gained buy committing crimes and atrocities. This statement is only one degree removed from saying "Yes, Hitler has committed many crimes, but that is true of anyone who gained power as he has."

Even today we need only look around the world and we see almost every society either rent by religious faction or ground under the heel of a dominant church. Only our own nation, guarded by the First Amendment, has preserved religious liberties and largely avoided this misery. And even here, constrained to act only on their own parishioners and, occasionally, local politicians, the Catholic Church has unmercifully abused when they could.

This is not a lesson to be carelessly tossed aside with the muttering of a few homilies.