Why does this get me so angry?

I was raised Catholic. Went to Catholic school. Spent large portions of my life attending mass for holy days of some sort or another. Descended from a long line of believers. And yet, nothing about the Catholic church ever rang true to me. There was just absolutely zero resonance. I never felt that the things that happened in that building had any relevance to my life. At some point I began learning about Buddhist philosophy and to me that seemed more intuitive and less likely to make you perform mandated rituals that (to me) were nothing more than silly rules made up by a man-made institution with no correlation to actual spiritual exploration or becoming a better person. I'm not identifying myself as Buddhist just stating that it makes more sense to me. Catholicism is simply not a practical religion and I am a ridiculously practical person.

Long story short, the ongoing (I almost said "recent" but this is hardly recent) scandals of pedophilia and the church's complete denial of responsibility or consequences has me enraged and sickened. If any of this happened to my child I could not be responsible for my actions. I truly believe that the institution of the Catholic (and many other) churches encourages deviant behavior and makes a happy home for deviants.

A memory just came back as I typed this, Father Richard in my hometown parish, Our Lady of Grace, in Hinckley, OH. Not only did he embezzle from the church, but I distinctly remember being very creeped out as a 13 year old girl at the non-platonic feel of his hugs. And I remember my mom laughing about it. Which indicates to a kid that you best take care of it yourself by avoiding the situation all together because you will not get parental support. Which leads me to a whole different area of betrayal of trust by a parent and how I am determined not to do that to my own kid. And I think, how did all of these molested kids feel? I'm sure that many of their parents were more religious than mine and would beat their kids silly for the suggestion that a holy man would behave in such an inappropriate manner.

I know Dowd makes a living being controversial, but her recent columns on the church hit the nail on the head.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/opinion/07dowd.html