I’m hoping the world’s Roman Catholics take this sort of protest as it’s intended:
Pope Benedict XVI has met with clerical abuse victims as an estimated 10,000 demonstrators paraded through London protesting against the Catholic Church.
The protesters marched to Downing Street to condemn the church for its attitude to condom use, homosexuality, women’s rights and child abuse.
Note, these people are not protesting against people who call themselves Roman Catholics and their right to free expression of their religious beliefs, but the organisation that lets its agents abuse their children and then tries to cover it up; that tithes them and puts the money into maintaining a vast property portfolio for its own benefit. Against an organisation that fights hard against the civil liberties of the rest of us; that works relentlessly behind the scenes to bully our governments to impose its religious rules on all of us. That attacks secular government, openly campaigning to remove the separation of Church and State on which basic religious freedom depends.
You will BELONG TO US ONCE MORE!
The issue here is a toxic, corrupt political entity that will not be satisfied until we’re all its subjects. It seems definitely worth letting our politicians know how many people oppose that.
Moved On 
I started off nodding, but as I thought about it I have to call bollocks. Nope. To call yourself Catholic means you believe in “one holy catholic and apostolic Church”. (Nicene Creed, look it up.) That means you buy into the bullshit that comes from the top, including infallibility when the Pope sits in the magic chair.
So no, you can’t be Catholic and be excused from the actions of the church. The equivalent is saying “I agree with Al Qaida except for the Twin Towers thing”.
One of the principle tenets of Catholicism is all the anti-schismatic stuff. If you disagree with any church doctrine, you are no longer (Roman) Catholic.
I have to agree with Shermozle here: anybody that supports such an organisation is at least partially culpable. The Pope has personally helped to cover up child abuse, yet tens of thousands of people flock to listen to him tell us about morality! Those people, who must surely be aware of the systematic cover-up of that abuse, give the self-professed monarchy it’s validity.
Plus he equated atheism with Nazi Germany. This, coming from a man who worked for the Germans while they exterminated Jews, gays, and atheists, and who’s church officially supported Hitler’s campaign. If anybody tells me that Hitler was just using the Catholics, it’s says a lot more about so-called Christian morality (that it can be so easily subverted) than it does about anything else.
Catholics have tithes? Where?
Isn’t it called tithing? Putting money in the plate each week?
I thought that was just a collection and it’s optional. A tithe is when one comitts a fixed proportion of your income to the church. I don’t think Catholics do that. But I wouldn’t know, the only times I’ve visited a Catholic church was for weddings and funerals.
I was fairly sure formal tithing has been part of the Roman Catholic Church for at least a millenium.
Love your second paragraph dezinerau, I wrote a similar one at PP and got shot down, I stand by what I say though, if the Catholic Church believed what it preached then it would have openly and vigorously opposed the Nazi regime.
I’m picking that these dudes that run the Catholic church are clever, cunning types and they don’t actually believe in what they preach, they just realise that they’re on a winner because many people do actually believe the fairy tale they tell.
Go and see Richard Dawkins ripping the Pope and the Catholic Church a new one over here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/09/as_if_a_penis_were_an_essentia.php
The Original Sin = “the vile obscenity at the heart of Catholic theology”
“Joseph Ratzinger is an enemy of humanity”
He doesn’t hold back.
nice pic
“the death star will be completed on schedule”