anderson cooper and the catholic religion

so last night on anderson cooper 360 they had a special. it was about a cnn anchor who was molested by a priest as a young man. it was upsetting and horrible and everything you'd imagine a story about molestation to be. in the end, it turned out that the priest only served 10 months of an 18 month sentence which was reduced from a 5 year sentence. incredible. and to top it all off, the vatican has not defrocked this man, and he continues to serve as a priest. it's outrageous.

ok, so how does anderson cooper fit into all this? i read an anderson cooper blog that isn't at all about trashy gossip. it's usually an intelligent discussion about the content of the show and pretty much doesn't discuss anderson at all. i mean, every so often there are mentionings of how anderson looked that night [his ties are discussed quite often and the frequency of his hair cuts...which is a little odd].

anyway, 360 has been somewhat lacking lately. they've gotten into a rut of showing repeated "specials" in the second hour of the show and repeating the same segments over and over. it was getting annoying and the show was dull so the discussion on the board started to get out of hand. the comments were always about what anderson was wearing or how he was looking and trips to the "naughty chair" for various dirty thoughts. that also got annoying. the blog authors are quite strict about not posting personal attacks on other people or comments about anderson's personal life. so when they stopped everyons comments about how hot/sexy anderson looked on a particular evening, the comments turned into cnn bashing. everyone complained about how the blog used to be full of intelligent discussion and they miss it.

so my point to this whole thing is, last night was amazing! sure it was another special but it was fantastic. it was hard to watch thomas roberts talk about what he went through and everything that came of it. there was plenty of points to fuel an intelligent discussion. this is part of the comment i left [not to presume my comment was all that intelligent, it was just my personal point of view]:

i thought last nights show was fantastic. thomas did an excellent job of telling his story, and so soon after coming forward with it. he is a brave man and i applaud him for trying to make a difference.
what i don't understand are all these catholic priests who molest young boys/men. seriously. how can you call yourself a man of God and behave this way? i am technically a catholic since i was baptised and confirmed (my parents wishes, not mine), but more and more i find myself embarrassed by my religion. their backwards thinking about birth control and condom use (even to prevent AIDS), their views on homosexuality, and these molestation cases (among other things) make it pretty impossible for me to call myself a member of the church.
i cannot believe that the vatican has not defrocked this man and that he is still working as a priest. that part of the story has me the most outraged. how can anyone have faith in an organization that won't do anything to protect its members from this kind of horrible abuse?

i was looking forward to read what everyone else had to stay on the subject. but you know what the comments ended up being? all about the great job anderson did interviewing thomas and how awful molestation must be. and about how people have been cnn bashing lately and how the comments have gotten out of control.

come on people! this was your opportunnity to speak your mind! give your opinion and have a discussion! what is wrong with the catholic religion? why won't the vatican defrock this priest? is it just that they're all a member of some "boys club"? what if the vatican relaxed its views on homosexuality? would that reduce the number of molestations? why don't we see this happening in other religions? why just catholisism?

i was looking forward to a huge discussion on the topic. but i guess it's not gonna happen. either way, the show was amazing and i wish that things would change within the catholic religion.