Ryan krull

Last June, 71,000 people showed their support for Susan G. Komen for the Cure by Racing for the Cure in downtown St. Louis. Unlike those 71,000 folks, the St. Louis Archdiocese does not support Susan G. Komen for the Cure. In fact, the Archdiocese encourages its members, and its member’s money, to stay away from events such as Race for the Cure, Dine out for the Cure and Spare Nothing for the Cure (a bowling event to take place in October).

St. Louis Catholics are told not to support Komen for the Cure because, according to the Archdiocese’s website, “The Church has an obligation to instruct the faithful in the moral truth, so that they can form their consciences correctly.”

Basically, the church’s beef with the Komen people is that in 13 states Komen affiliates give money to Planned Parenthood. Missouri is not one of those 13 states and money raised at events like Race for the Cure is earmarked for national breast cancer research and local breast cancer education and screening. The archdiocese claims that, though the money raised is earmarked, it does free up other funds for Komen affiliates in other states to give to institutions like Planned Parenthood.

So, yes, it is possible that an infinitesimal slither of the money donated to the Race for the Cure last June did end up indirectly funding an abortion in some other state. But that is not the issue. The issue is that the St. Louis archdiocese has the audacity to say that it is merely following its “obligation to instruct the faithful in the moral truth” when it tells Catholics to not give money to Komen for the Cure.

If the archdiocese really wanted to instruct its followers “in the moral truth” it would issue this statement: Next Sunday, whatever you do, don’t put any money in our collection basket because that money might go towards paying to sort out the gross misconduct of a deviant priest, paying for the legal defense of a pedophile priest or, at the very least, go to help sustain an infrastructure that has malignly neglected chronic child abuse.

Last year St. Louis archdiocese released financial documents stating they had spent $352,000 in payments to victims of pedophile priests. The same documents said that the archdiocese had spent more than twice that paying lawyers. All that cash is not coming from the sale of school uniforms and going back into the Indulgence racket is probably pretty much out of the question. A good chunk of those big numbers is obviously coming from parishioner tithing. Even if the church could somehow prove that all settlement money came from funding sources other than member tithing then, using the same logic used by the church against Komen for the Cure, it would still be fair to say do not tithe because your tithing frees up money elsewhere to be used for costs incurred due to rampant child sexual abuse.

So if you think abortion is bad, then maybe look into where your money is going before supporting events like the Susan G. Komen Spare Nothing for the Cure (taking place October 24 at the Brunswick Lanes in Chesterfield, call 1-877 GO KOMEN or visit www.komen.org for more info).

And if you think child molestation is bad, then definitely do not give any money to or in any way support the St. Louis archdiocese. That statement is based on the St. Louis Archdiocese’s logic, not mine.