The Catholic Church is a bad thing

I would like to answer my opponents questions before I get started. When I say the Catholic Church I mean to entail the priests, nuns, ideology, and everything that makes the Catholic Church the Catholic Church. TO better clarify the premise, I could restate it as, "The Catholic Church is the cause of much suffering and death." Which is exactly the point I want to confer, The Catholic Church is the cause for the suffering and death and maltreatment of millions of people all through history and even today. To go back to early examples, we can say the crusades. The children's crusade is one where children were suited up and taken to the middle east to fight and were raped and slaughtered by the droves. Another example is the rest of the crusades actually. We can also look at the Inquisition where thousands of Jews were burned at the stake simply for not converting to Catholicism. The sack of Constantinople which all of these I must point out were the result of a divine warrant. The torture of Galileo. Thanks to Catholic fundamentalism, Galileo was tortured relentlessly until he "admitted" that he was wrong. The Church's role in the African slave trade, The burning of protestants at the stake after the protestant reformation, the injustices against women, the silence of the church during the holocaust, Catholic contempt for religious and ethnic groups, and the sex abuse cases against aboriginal children. All these things that I just mentioned were apologized for by pope Ratzinger, but it does not change that they happen, nor mend the families afflicted by the evils of the Catholic Church. Let's fast forward in time a little to the 1920's-30's, and have a look at The Church's role in the rise of fascist dictators. The church was well in cooperation with Mussolini, but they also cooperated with Hitler in his rise to power by giving the church a monopoly over German schools in exchange for a straight shot to political power for the Nazi regime. The Churches tendency towards antisemitism until the 60's. One of my particular problems with this establishment is the concept of Limbo. A place that was described as the outer part of hell where unbaptized children went. Tell me how this is moral teaching? For centuries, parents were told that since their child wasn't baptized early enough before it died, that it was in place of horrible torture. This wicked teaching was the cause of emotional unrest and distress for centuries, until the Church said, "oops, we were wrong about that." And then go back to calling themselves infallible and have no problem doing it, but will never make up for the damage wrought in the families afflicted by the horrible teaching. The Catholic Church also played a role in the genocide in Rwanda. 800,000 people in Rwanda slaughtered and working with the heads of it all? The very priests and nuns that claim to represent this "infallible" institution. The Church's role in the Yugoslavia holocaust during WW2. Again 800,000 men, women, and children slaughtered mercilessly in an event headed by members of the Catholic church. The Catholic Church opposes contraception. And it does this with outrageous claims such as Ratzinger's assertion that Condoms are worse than AIDS and that was his official stance. Finally, I want to detest rape and maltreatment of countless children by the members of the church and the covering up of these happenings by people such as Cardinal Law. I believe I have made it very clear that the Catholic Church is not good thing, but indeed a bad thing, or as I stated in my introduction, "the cause of much suffering and death." I look forward to my Opponent's arguments. Vote Pro http://historyguide.org... http://www.newadvent.org... http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org... http://www.roman-empire.net... http://www.evolution.mbdojo.com... http://www.nytimes.com... https://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.iiipublishing.com... http://www.religioustolerance.org... http://www.thefreedictionary.com... http://www.religionnewsblog.com... http://www.theguardian.com... http://www.unitedhumanrights.org... http://www.fantompowa.net... http://www.telegraph.co.uk... http://www.slate.com...