I appreciate your heartfelt comment. The following is an honest criticism on your sentiment, which while well-meaning, is actually harmful to many children around the world right now who need a light shone on this issue.

> When you mix this with right wing politics, nationalists, extremists,.. you end up with something that ventures so far from Catholicism that it becomes unrecognizable.

The reality is that the past isn't so rosy, and that Catholicism and Christianity have always, in practice, served as political and financial instruments to those who wield them. The people at the very top know what they are enabling, just look at the response to pedophilia and abuse and how long it took for the Church to even appear to do something about it.

It's a transaction many gladly make, and one that was heavily advertised since the beginning: Sin on the weekdays, beg for forgiveness on the weekends. Receive a nicely packaged enemy to direct your class frustrations toward. All in exchange for a tithing and a warm body for any social causes.

> Just to make a single example nowhere in the Catechism does it say you should be shunned for refusing Confirmation.. in fact being "forced" to do any of it deems it invalid!

I wasn't forced to get confirmed. I had the option of becoming homeless and being cut off from my extended family, who were entirely Catholic and all attended different Churches (no isolated sects).

> It really is a shame that many Catholics (and broader Christians as well) seem to struggle with treating LGBT brothers and sisters with dignity.

...Have you read Genesis? The first book of the Bible? Where God destroys entire cities for having gay sex? That's basic Catholic literature, and if you are a true Catholic, it's something you believe in. If you don't believe in it, you're not a Catholic. It's not open for interpretation.

Also see Leviticus, etc. Or look at my patron saint, Joan of Arc, who got burned at the stake at age 17 for wearing pants.

> There's nothing I want more for people than for them to realize that they have immense value as a child of God outside of anything else - their sexuality, their appearance, etc. because it's heartbreaking to me that many feel they do not.

Thank you for believing in the innate humanity of every individual, and the right for their lifestyle choices to be respected and not infringed upon.

Unfortunately, that sentiment is anti-biblical, and you need to choose between maintaining that attitude and supporting an institution that has historically supported, and continues to support, unjust crusades and anti-humanitarian principles and political fascism.

Because you cannot do both, unless you don't fully understand the topics.

> Anyway, it doesn't take much for me to reconcile being respectful of others with my faith.

That's great. I was beaten almost nightly by a deacon who was revered in my community, shaken and spit at and told I had Satan inside of me, viciously whipped with the buckle ends of my tormentor's massive belt collection, until I couldn't cry anymore, because "men don't cry and I will whip you until you learn not to cry."

Every Sunday I would watch him dispense parables of love and acceptance, I would watch my community look up to him and ask him for advice. And then, on the way home, I'd be avoiding black eyes.

I remember one time on the way to Church, he and my brother began assaulting me. He stopped the car, pulled me out of the vehicle and threw me in a ditch, pinning me down. I was fifteen, finally getting old enough to fight back, and I managed to get him on the ground and kick him in the ribs until he stopped trying to attack me.

Then he got in the car, left me stranded on a highway and went to tell a sermon while I limped for miles back home. Then called the police on me and told them I was dangerous and armed, and when we got to the precinct he went on a violent rant about how I was an athiest, and I feared for my life as the police just watched, as they always did.

This wasn't a few times. This isn't just one bad apple. This is institutional, and I am a direct victim of this system from which you are fortunate enough to be on the beneficiary end of. I lived in fear of death my entire childhood.

The Church is not what you think it is. And remember that there are gigantic Catholic communities in Brazil, Mexico, Russia, and the Philippines, where systemic child abuse is still not only tolerated but in some cases encouraged.