The March 3 article “‘Believing without belonging’ challenges Catholics” about the decline in new members of the Catholic Church indicated that the church has a serious problem in attracting new members.

I wonder how many members also have quit the church due to the child abuse scandals. The church has paid out more than $2 billion in settlement suits associated with these scandals. Here in Iowa, the Davenport Diocese declared bankruptcy because it didn’t have the assets to pay for civil cases brought forward by abuse victims. Some estimates of the number of children abused in the U.S. and half a dozen European countries place the figure at 100,000.

Cardinal Roger Mahony from the U.S. was in Rome to vote for a new pope even though he covered up abuse cases and moved priests that had abused children to other places. Mahony and other cardinals and bishops in the church should have fired these child abusers and brought them to justice, since child abuse is a felony. The victims of abuse and I am outraged by these cover-ups.

Jim Slitor

Decorah