Of course. How can a "church" abuse anyone? Certainly, child abuse has never been the policy of the Roman Catholic Church, so – yes, reports of abuse by the Roman Catholic Church are a farce. Reports of abuse by individuals who are employed by the Roman Catholic Church is a different matter. Naturally, those individuals should be held accountable to the full extent of the law.

2) 39 000 grown men then come forward to allege sexual mental abuse.and tiorture by the Catholic church

If true, they're gold diggers. I've never seen or even heard of anyone being abused by a church.

I think what you are missing is the details. Consider the situation
a) the report covered a period of time beginning in the 1930s
b) the report evaluated **reform schools** during this period
c) the report covered a nation that is predominantly Roman Catholic

I think that if you did a similar report
a) for a nation NOT predominantly Roman Catholic
b) for a nation of similar economic state
c) during the same period of time
d) evaluating all reform schools in that nation

I think you would come up with an essentially identical result, cover ups and all. It so happens that Ireland, *because* it is a Roman Catholic nation, has Roman Catholic reform schools. I think the non-Roman Catholic reform schools in the non-Roman Catholic "poor" nations during that same time period probably had the very same problems.

Jim, http://www.bibleselector.com/

There are exceptions to this, though.

There are 5 ways (besides her telling you that she's not a virgin) to tell that a girl/woman has had sex:

1) she's got children with her that are obviously her own,

2) she's pregnant,

3) her vulva, hymen and vagina have obviously gone through childbirth,

4) she has a disease that is impossible to get through anything but intercourse, or

5) she has semen in her vagina.

That's it. There's absolutely no other way on earth to know for sure… not even if you're a gynecologist with 30 years' experience.

Why on earth do you *care*?

What's the point of "saving yourself for marriage" anyhow?

To me, that's not called "purity", it's called "ignorance of a vital part of married life", not terribly unlike not knowing how often to bathe, not knowing the difference between a potato and a loaf of bread, or not knowing that it's good manners to say "hello" when you see the love of your life.

Each of the two women I've married had already had two children from previous marriages when we met… my present girlfriend has a kid from a previous marriage. Obviously, they weren't virgins, and why should either of us care about that if we love each other?

I'd *never* marry a virgin. She doesn't know how to have sex that satisfies her, and I have no way to know if sex with her would satisfy *me*… we'd have no basis at all on which to even agree on what satisfying sex *is*. How can anyone possibly entrust such an important part of their life-long relationship to the luck of the draw by marrying someone they know nothing about sexually?

I seriously don't get it.

You've all heard that old saw "who'd buy the cow if they get their milk for free", right? That's stupid. When I'm with a woman, I'm enjoying the company of another person. I'm not looking for free milk while shopping for some other cow… and if it happens that she and I wind up in bed, then we'll know one more thing about each other to add to what we'll use in our decisions about our relationship – and our marriage, should it come to pass.

Lousy or even just incompatible marital sex is a very frequent cause of marital breakdown, infidelity and divorce. Why risk that on a life-long gamble?

You can *have* your "purity"… your "innocence"… your "untarnished goods" if you think you'll like it… but I'll take the woman I already know I can have mutually-great sex with for the rest of our lives together instead, thanks.