My brother-in-law committed suicide by proxy (drank himself to death) because he was molested by Catholic priests as a teenager.
Not to sound insensitive towards your family, but I suspect your brother-in-law drank himself to death because he was, above all things, an alcoholic. I was molested as a child too by a neighbor. If pedophilia automatically leads to overdose, I'd have been dead a long time ago.
I have no more hope that the perpetrators or their allies be brought to justice than any other international criminal currently in power.
As do I. I also hope they place them in general population too
I completely suport the actions of Dawkins and Hitchens in this matter and my only question to them is "what can I do to help?"
I agree with them that their stature and clout offer them an opportunity to have a voice with a lot of reach. But are they protesting pedophilia in general or priests who perform pedophilia? Because if it's the latter, then it is not nearly as much about the victims than it is another reason to wage war on religion. Isn't that the real motivation here? What they choose to protest against is what is suspect.
I have the same visceral reaction towards the Catholic Church as they do. I think the papacy manufactures problem like this by disallowing people to be priests unless they become celibate. In that way they have tied up heavy loads of burden to be foisted upon people unnecessarily. Even Paul said that it is better to marry than burn with passion.
I want to vomit when I see all the gold in the Vatican, when I see how it operates more like a corporation than a community, etc. But Dawkins takes it to another level where all religion is unilaterally attacked. In that way I think it tends to undermine his own goal because his intolerance towards religion, just for being a religion, seems to make him drink from the same pool of fanaticism.
"Political correctness is tyranny with manners." -- Charlton Heston