Update: 4/14/08: If you liked, hated or felt indifferent about this post… Come check out my latest about the Catholic Church:

The Pope hits the U.S. Will he solve the rape issues?

Cult leader versus Pope, hilarious attack on the Catholic Church by Bill Maher

Who has $615 million dollars to just throw around? The answer to that question is the Catholic Church. Who also has the money to suppress a lot of bad press? The answer again is the Catholic Church. Who doesn’t have the decency to stay out of little boys pants? Again… The Catholic Church.

Here is a few quotes I found interesting in an :

Of the monies paid out by the church, 526 million dollars went to settling cases…

Around 23 million dollars was paid out for therapy for victims or support for accused offenders, and 60 million dollars for legal fees, said the report, which was commissioned by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

McKiernan estimated that more than 5,000 priests out of nearly 41,500 across the United States have been denounced for sexually abusing children since the 1950s.

A report commissioned in 2004 by the USCCB from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Washington found that nearly 4,400 priests had been accused of abuse.

In the last year, about 689 new allegations of abuse were lodged, that is only three percent fewer than in 2006. A lot of the cases settled in 2007 dated back decades. Of course most of the victims were teenage boys between 10 and 14.

Between 2006 and 2007 alone, “expenditure related to allegations increased by 54 percent,” due mainly to a near-doubling of the amount paid out for settlements in 2007, it said, showing that other pay-outs had fallen.

But Terry McKiernan, president of the organization Bishop Accountability, which documents the abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic church, said the report by the bishops was opaque and fudged the number of clergymen who have been accused of sexually abusing children.

“Because the report is only counting and not actually naming the priests, we are not able to determine which of these allegations pertain to priests already accused and which pertain to new priests,” McKiernan told AFP by phone from Boston.

I am not attacking the Catholic Church, but if you think about it in terms of a different company [not a non-profit organization] like Pizza Hut, Dell or Microsoft then people would boycott those companies. The companies would look horrible in the press, and people would begin to seek out other options for their pizza and computer needs. With all the bad press, even the stuff quickly suppressed, people still sit through church every Sunday and then some. No one cares what the Churches do, they are holy, and untouchable.

To be quite honest, I believe that all churches are the same, but Scientology, Christianity, Catholicism, ect. are all the same. They brainwash their community into getting more followers, followers of God they brainwashed you to assume. Or just more people to pay out of their pocket so they can afford to stay afloat after the millions of dollars spent on sex abuse cases. Sad thing is, people, tax payers, complain to no ends about paying for the containment of prisoners. But, when people think about giving money to the church, it is overlooked what they really spend their money on. Seriously, think about how much money you all just wasted by throwing it at the Catholic Churches blunders. Think twice before you put money into their collection plate, I bet it goes into the “Sex Abuse” folder instead of the petty cash.