I left my heart in San Diego

Over at Stageleft, they ask a provocative question:

 It appears that we’re not very good learners though, try as they might the UpperRightQuadrant was unable to clearly explain to us the difference between an institution like the LA archdiocese reaching a settlement over sexual abuse being (possibly – there’s one question still outstanding, we might have misunderstood that as well) reasonable, possibly even ok, but an institution like a government doing the same is not.

Well, I’m certainly no constitutional lawyer, but I would hazard a guess that the recent bankruptcy of the San Diego archdiocese may give a clue to the ultimate answer. A Catholic archdiocese can’t use the enforcement arm of the government to throw non-tithers in prison for parish contributions that have fallen into arrears. If parishioners stop contributing, the pennies at the bottom of the well dry up.

Make sense?