by David Mclinn

Created on: April 16, 2008

Pope Benedict XVI will spend six days in the United States. He will receive plenty of advice over the airwaves from the political pundits. He'll sure get an earful.

In leftwing circles, Christianity is not protected by political correctness. So the religion bashers, like Bill Maher, will use the visit as a pretext to spew their hatred of the Catholic Church.

Maher called the Pope a pedophilia cult leader. Oh yeah, Maher is all class and so inspiring.

The Catholic Church has been around for about two thousand years. That's enough time for the leaders of any powerful organization to wander in and out of a lot of trouble. Most Protestant religions were spawned by rebellions against the practices of the Catholic Church. And many with good cause.

It would take a life time to read the volumes of treatises written about the Church's abuse of temporal power, the blood letting it instigated, the intrigue in Rome, its unsavory political adventures and the ruthless protection of its dogma.

The rampant pedophilia in the ranks of US clergy added another sordid chapter to its history. Its bishops and cardinals were accomplices. They played pedophilia roulette with the lives of the young and innocent church members. The disclosures rubbed raw nerves.

As the story unfolded, Catholics were outraged, ashamed and humiliated. Many walked away from the Church in silent disgust; others stood outside the church doors, ready to lynch the offenders. But most stayed. That is the point.

Why every last Catholic didn't leave the Church is something that the Bill Mahers of this world will never understand. He and his comrades are so imbued with their smirking, intellectual hatred of religious principles that they have deceived themselves into believing all Catholics and Christians are stupid, gullible sheep in need of a crutch.

Their presidential candidate of choice, Senator Obama, voiced this elitist position when he described the faith of Pennsylvania's rural residents.

Maher's crowd is too myopic and shallow to distinguish between the frailty of the Church's temporary keepers and the eternal message of Christianity. Despite the unworthiness of many of its messengers, Christianity has flourished for two millenniums.

The secular elitists can't separate the Christian message from the Christian messengers without exposing the emptiness of their value system. Trapped in their own distorted logic and demagoguery, they are as pathetic as the pedophiles.

Like truth, the Christian message is immutable. It's not dependent on the frailty of mankind; like matter and infinity, it would exist without mankind.

Catholicism and Christianity exist because absolute truth is absolute truth. That's why the message of Christianity will endure to the end of time.

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