Here's what frosts me

2 Billion Dollars Down the Drain

At the height of its profitability the MCI corporation in the early 1990s aspired to be a 2 Billion dollar corporation. It was one of the largest private employers in the DC area at the time, and entire families were fed, sent their kids to college and serviced mortgages in the DC -Maryland-Northern Virginia area from salaries earned at MCI corporation. It fed, clothed, housed and educated people on entrepreneurial ingenuity. I know because I worked for a time in it's General Counsel's office on a project.

Where did the Catholic church get 2 Billion dollars to pay off settlements (secret or otherwise) and what should that money instead have been used for? How many dollars in the bucket makes 2 Billion. Who had that kind of money that made 2 Billion dollars loose change to throw at settlements?

If the Catholic church has 2 Billion dollars loose change, it has the money to fund families of its priests. It has the money to pay living wage salaries to priests and house their families and allow diocesene priests to marry. NO EXCUSE. If you had psychologically/emotionally healthier intelligent priests you would pay less out for the misdeeds of the miscreants. The church pays tens of thousands for statues of dead 'saints' and millions on church property upkeep, and can't see clear of supporting families for their priests. The paintings alone for one Dome of the National Shrine Basillica in Washington, DC (there are several) cost the Knights of Columbus over one million dollars. And priests cannot afford a family?
Are you insane? Where are your priorities?

Saint Anthony it is believed is famous for stopping the money lending loan sharking practices in Padua making it finally against the law to imprison anyone for debt in Padua (revolutionary for the day) because he saw the suffering of the wives without husbands struggling to support their families and turning to prostitution and anything else that earned them a lira. He put all his
Franciscan Friars literally to work in the building trades to pay off the debts to release the prisoners from debtor's prison-because Jesus sets the captives free. He saw the suffering of the wives and couldn't stand it. It was just wrong.

He saw the law that put husbands- the sole breadwinning providers- in jail and said essentially "the law is an Ass" and changed it.

Saint Anthony is the church's greatest Lobbyist. When the Law is an Ass- change it.