In Reply to: Well now you may be missing the point a bit here posted by germane on March 22, 2005 at 22:51:39:
"the catholic church is not a cult or highly destructive group"
I wonder what victims of the inquisition, crusades and the genocide of hundreds of thousands if not millions of women tortured and killed for "witchcraft" by the catholic church would think of your statement that it is not highly destructive. The subjugation of women isn't just history either, it is still going on through the tightfisted control of church fathers (read men) who dogmatically control millions of women's reproductive lives.
It is now common knowledge that church leaders at the highest levels covered up paedophelia. In a documentary I saw on that scandal, one priest who acknowledged (a rarity) he was an untreatable paedophile and voluntarily quit the priesthood after he was caught said that the priesthood reproduced abusers in a vicious cycle. He was abused as an altar boy, as were other priests interviewed in the documentary. Their abuse as children became normalized behavior for them. Instead of reproducing natural offspring through heterosexual unions, the priesthood reproduces abusers in a vicious cycle. Where do those priests come from anyway. From catholic families.
Not a destructive group? I don't think the church has moved very far from its past and the same is true for the Family.