Trying To Be Fair Here...

Pope Corleone

I am not a Catholic.  And I'm not a big believer in religious busybodies telling other people how to best conduct their quest for the divine in a temporal world.  I'm a more or less practicing Christian, but since I'm a liberal Episcopalian who be believes that gays are human beings, there are those who say I'm not a real Christian.

So, I advance this with some hesitation.

WTF is up with the Catholic Church?

First, we have Ireland and their - shocking -  decades long cover-up of pedophiliac priests.  This is a scandal that apparently reaches all the way to the Vatican.  It's not really a huge story in this country, since we've already apparently moved on from our disgust with the Catholic church's cover-up of pedophiliac priests in this country.

Now, I read in today's Times that the Catholic Church in Mexico has been building churches with narco dollars from drug dealers.  Given that drug traffickers are literally tearing that country apart, this seems a strange marriage.  Murderous drug runners and the church of Peter are working hand in hand to build stuff.

Some of this, apparently, is a by-product of Mexico's extreme separation of church and state that has deprived the Mexican church of fund and support. But why hasn't Rome supported the Mexican church?  Why hasn't one of the richest entities in the world stepped forward, rather than let the church in the largest Spanish speaking country in the world get in bed with drug lords?

Is this a product of rigid hierarchical thinking and a lack of value of dissent?

Or am I just grafting my own predilections on this situation?