Does church 'right' include Crusades?

A letter in the Aug. 10 Daily Herald states that the Catholic Church exists to inform us what is right or wrong, and the Church needs to speak truth into all of our lives.

Well, does that "what-is-right" as taught by the Church include the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, the burning of witches and other nonbelievers and, most recently, the raping of Catholic altar boys by priests?

The letter goes on to state that God's revealed ways have always been a problem for "secular-thinking folks." I agree with the letter writer on that point, that these "revealed ways" do present a problem to us "secular-thinking folks."

Fred Beach

Elgin