The Catholic Church is and has been a force for good in the world

If one is going to defend the proposition then one has to begin by making a great deal of heartfelt apologies and request for contrition. The crimes perpetrated by the Catholic Church against humanity and the offenses against the free intelligence must be pardoned for. In the millennium jubilee of 2000, Bishop Piero Marini used a whole sermon as an apology given by His Holiness the Pope to explained that "given the number of sins committed in the course of 20 centuries, it must be necessarily be rather summary". I think he is just about right so I will try to be rather summary, too. His Holiness begged forgiveness for, among some other things, the inquisition, the crusades, the persecution of the Jewish people, forced conversion of indigenous people in South America and injustice towards women (half the human race). This was followed by proceeding apologizes that have although already been apologized for in the course of the 20th century, but which he chose to emphasize his regret for in his sermon. These apologizes range from the African slave trade; the fact that Pope Pius XII was silent when the Nazis rounded up the Jews to be deported from Rome " - which partly was due to the fact that German Catholics failed to mount a proper resistance against Hitler"s antisemitism; the fact that the very doctrine that said that Jews murdered Christ was said to have ideologically reinforced Nazism and was an official doctrine taught by the Catholic Church until 1964, the fact that Vatican officials allegedly helped Nazis escape facing trial for what they had done by helping them escape Europe. (1) And it doesn't end there. There are other albeit less significant admissions of bad conscience. One such admission is of the very fact that rape and torture of orphans have been going on in church-run schools in almost every country on earth. These are serious matters that cannot be brushed aside by referencing to occasional works of Catholic charities or other philanthropically oriented Catholic endeavors. The Vatican must be exposed for what it is: a criminal body under international law. In fact, it has been declared as a transnational criminal organization by a verdict of the International Common Law Court of Justice. It declared the Catholic Church and its governing body, the Vatican, is to be considered as a criminal body under international law. It found that the Catholic Church along with its highest officials were guilty of aiding and abetting child trafficking worldwide. The laws passed in Rome criminalized disclosure of information regarding child abuse (or I should say child rape) and molestation. The new internal church policy threatens members with excommunication were any clergy or employee to utter a single word of any sex abuse in the church to the authorities. The internal policy is called 'Crimine solicitationies' from 1962 that the Vatican sent to every bishop in the world. These laws essentially tells every Catholic in the world to violate their own domestic laws by giving aid and comfort to child rapists. The Pope is not only facilitating international child abuse, he is the head of a criminal conspiracy. By dint of its criminal status, the Pope and the Catholic Church is waging a war against the sovereignty of other nations and the law of nations. Jorge Bergoglio, the head of the Church of Rome and indeed a leading figure in Catholicism, and in extension the whole Catholic Church as such is thereby an enemy of humanity. In effect, The Roman Catholic Church ought to be subject to all the sanctions prescribed in United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (2000). These sanctions include the seizure of all funds, property and assets of the Church, the arrest of Church officers, and the return of all stolen lands and goods held by the Church. Accordingly, the top officers of the Church of Rome are in fact fugitives from the law and so they must be punished in accordance with international laws. (2) The Catholic Church has over the course of history managed to establish itself as a powerful institution. The church has managed to ingratiate itself in many areas of society in order to consolidate its monetary wealth and power. Not only has it done so in the past long gone but also at times still remembered today. The power at the Catholic Church"s disposal has often been abused and deployed in ways that has grossly violated human rights and the freedom of men and women alike, but particularly for women. The Baby Scoop Era was period that lasted somewhere between the end of World War II and approximately between 1970 and 1980s. During this period, religious organizations - primarily the Catholic Church " ran mother care clinics. The most well-known of the religious run institutions was The Magdalene Laundries run by the Catholic Church. What essentially characterized this period was that many women had little to no control over their reproductive lives. Roe vs Wade had not been implemented so abortions were prohibited until 1973 in US, and abortions were not regularly available in most countries until the early-mid 1970"s. This was also the case for birth control which was not readily available until the 1960"s, albeit these were only granted to married couples in the 1960s and was only available for single mother in the 1970s. The situation for unwed single mothers at this time was, thus, that they had few successful ways to prevent pregnancies and/or to end pregnancies. Since the care of pregnant women out of wedlock were handled primarily the Magdalene asylums (a Catholic institution) not only in the US but across Europe, Australia and Canada, these were subject to the care of Catholics, and, in extension, the Catholic Church itself because it supervised these institutions. The Magdalene Laundries operated for more than 200 years. It started like a shelter for prostitutes (hence, referring to the prostitute Magdalene in the bible) seemingly as a place where they could come and go. It started off as a penitential asylums but eventually became a closed off detention facility where these "fallen women" were doing laundry and other types of hard labor works to perhaps your parents and grandparents. However, for some women these were closed communities, essentially detaining centers where women could completely disappear from society. From 1765 until the late 1990, it is estimated that in Ireland alone about 30,000 women were incarcerated in these facilities due to their loss of chastity and, thus, they had fallen from the grace of God. (. http://www.the-archer.co.uk...). This was a mischief that was associated with prostitution and was not morally and socially acceptable during these times because of the view that a woman"s sexuality were to be constricted to the status of marriage, under the supervision of an authoritative man. The women were, thus, seen as "fallen", and it was the goal of these institutions to rehabilitate the women to society. However, few women ever returned to society but were instead imprisoned in these facilities in order to work in these facilities and remunerate God, essentially. This included hard labor work such as doing laundry work before the advent of more modern washing machines, boiling coppers and hand wringing devices. (5) In the 1940s and 1950s, the term "illegitimacy" started to be used as a psychological characterization on the part of the mother as essentially an unfit mother. During this time, two diametrically conflicting paradigms faced each other: a more open view on women"s sexuality as contrasted to the traditional view that chastity was a moral virtue and that everything else was regarded as sin. Because of the liberalization of women"s sexual mores coincided with the traditionalists deliberate attempts to thwart this sexual emancipation through restrictions on access to birth control. This, however, lead to an increase in premarital pregnancies. (3) In US alone, from approximately 1940 to 1970 an estimated 4 million mothers in the United States had to relinquish their newborn children for adoption; 2 million of the infants were surrendered in 1960 alone. In contrast, the U. S Department of Health and Human Services estimated that about 14000 of these were "voluntarily" given up for adoption in 2003. (4) The women were, thus, basically forced to carry out adoptions since, in a time when the Catholic Church wielded a lot of cultural influence, they were neither medically or culturally regarded as fit mothers. In Spain alone it is estimated that over 300,000 babies were trafficked by institution run by the Catholic Church. This lasted from the reign of Franco until early nineties, over a period of five decades. The babies were essentially stolen from their parents (but most often it was single and unwed mothers that were effected) by a secret network of nurses and doctors. The nurses and doctors basically lied and said that the baby had died during or after birth and that the seeing the baby. They then put these infants up for adoption to devout parents that were financially stable, hence seen as "better" parents. Thus, the Catholic Church has made a fortune upon the misery of millions of women and children. (6) The Catholic Church is, consequently, a contemptible and regrettable institution. 1. . https://groups.google.com... 2. . http://itccs.org... 3. Gone to an Aunt's: Remembering Canada's Homes for Unwed Mothers. (pp. 7"8) 4. . http://pages.uoregon.edu... 5. 6. . http://www.dailymail.co.uk...