I am a religious man, and I believe firmly in my Faith. In our western culture, this is becoming rarer by the year. I was asked today by the producer Krupa Thkrar of the BBC whether I think that the Catholic Church is a good thing for the world we live in. Yes, I think my Church, with all of its very human shortcomings, is a very good influence on our raggedy world of the present.
Arguments against my belief are constantly presented to me by friends who take pity on my “ignorance” and seek to save me from the “dark ages” and from my beliefs. The classical ones seem never to get old in the minds of my interlocutors. The Inquisition, the Church’s irreducible stands on Abortion, pre-marital/free sex and the incidents involving paedophiles are certainly the all time favourites of my agnostic and atheist “rescuers”. I am no cynic nor am I blind to the fact that the Catholic Church, as a secular institution, did have and does have its poor moments throughout History. I’ve even been known to hold an argument with intransigent clergymen or to complain to the local bishop about some priest here or there.
To all of my usual and occasional interlocutors, I have only this to say: The Church, as holy as it truly is in its mission to safeguard, defend and uphold the Repository of Faith in all of its Truth, is also a secular institution composed of fallible men and women. These men and women are as susceptible to the corruptions of our world as any of us, and from time to time they step away from their true mission and allow themselves to be corrupted by the world. However, there are none who can claim that the Church is the exclusive source of the evils it is accused of. More to the point, the Church’s shortcomings cannot possibly be more important to the History of Mankind than the Church’s defence of a Faith that preaches values and love that are as crucial to our Global Human Society of today as they were at the dawn of Classical History.
1. Was the Inquisition a horrible event? Yes. Was it more horrible than contemporary events perpetrated by secular institutions? By no means, and all one needs to do to be reminded of it is to review all the beheadings and rapes and torture perpetrated by heads of state not loyal to the Church (and to my English interlocutors: England too had its good share of royal tyrants).
2. Were a handful of Catholic priests found guilty of child abuse? Yes. Do the majority of paedophiles come from the Church? Not by a vast margin. Neither does the Church build porn websites on the Internet with “lolitas” on them, do they? To correct the problem, we should look first at the parties making money out of this, and the Church is certainly not among them. To our collective shame, there are today more cases of child abuse within the sanctity of home & family than there ever were in the Church. This is a sign of a diseased society, yet we see the Church, not Society in general, in the spotlight. Why?
The complete truth of the matter is that our world is infected by many social diseases like greed, hedonism and a variety of perversions and abominations. What transpires in the Church is but a reflection of a wider problem that infects all levels of society and all of our institutions. Like you and me, the people working for the Church are vulnerable to the temptations of the times. Some give in to temptation and step away from God’s teachings when they do. Does that mean that the Church, and all the good that comes from it in charity, ethics and Transcendental Devine Truth is nullified? Of course not!
The good that is done by the Catholic Church is multileveled and multifaceted. There is practical good done in CHARITABLE PROGRAMMES, in EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMES, and in the PROMOTION OF PEACE. There is social good obtained from the Church’s stands on the ETHICS in human relations and on painfully controversial but very necessary DEFENCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS and the DEFENCE OF ALL LIFE. There is a wealth of spiritual good obtained from the Catholic Church’s KEEPING OF GOD’S TRUTH and the Church’s availability to provide the peoples of the world with access to SPIRITUAL FULFILMENT.
Some of my interlocutors don’t realise that most of us, poor ignorant folk of the world, thirst and hunger for more than what the world can offer. We want JUSTICE and we want CONSOLATION and UNCONDITIONAL LOVE and UNDERSTANDING and so many other things that the world and all of its governments, its trinkets and its pleasures cannot provide. This is, in my humblest and most ignorant of opinions, the single-most and greatest benefit that the Catholic Church endeavours to deliver to the world. The Church is first and foremost the keeper of the Good News, and it is the Church’s holy mission to announce It and be available to those who seek It.
To those among you who say the Church needs to be modernised to serve the whims of the people and the interests of the wealthy, I have this to say: The above is EXACTLY why the Church cannot be a democratic institution malleable to the urges of societies around the globe. This is EXACTLY why the Church cannot be “modernised” to answer to the voracity of appetite of a consumer society that wishes to replace time-honoured moral values that exist to help us live well with one another with the egotistic ephemeral fix of “the next sexual partner” or “the next off-the-shelf pleasure”. Mind you, people still do it anyway, but let them do it outside the bosom of the Church and without consent from it.
Every time the Church has consented to the “urge for modernisation” and to the “sanction to adaptation” it became vulnerable to the very accusations that are still made against it to this very day. The Church’s calling is NOT the pleasing of personal interests and political agendas. What was the Inquisition if not a consequence of the Church’s involvement with the politics & economics of temporal power? NO! The Church is first and foremost the keeper of the Catholic Faith in God and in Jesus Christ, and the Church cannot budge from its obligation to the Truth of this Faith. The Catholic Faith is not the Church’s or the Pope’s Object to be changed by either of them. It is God’s alone and only He may change it. To the Church lies only the solemn duty of preserving and offering the Truth it safeguards to those who would willingly seek It.
To me, this makes the Catholic Church A VERY GOOD THING in our world of today.
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8 comments:
Sorry to say, bt no roganised religion is a good thing. i believe the Catholic Church is the worst of the lot being highly manipulative and taking all it can from its people. I believe in God, I believe Jesus is his son. I certainly do not believe in the Catholic Church. I believe all religions to some extent have got it right, but for some Higher design, God has given everyone a piece of a puzzle which we will only understand upon death. Or just before the world ends.
Now is the Catholic Church a good thing? Hard to tell after all they have made people suffer. Other religions have also brought God's word to the people without the killing and the torture and the wars. Well, I am generalising, but were I to go deeper, you would be reading a book, not a blog comment.
Everyone is certainly entitled to his/her opinions however long or complex they may be. I, for one, will not impose mine on anyone. I think my Church has returned to this same concept long ago; though it is still blamed for what transpired during a period of its past. By the same token, I would not brook others imposing their beliefs on me.
I believe as we mature in life we realize as there are no purely good and purely bad things. All are shades of one and the other. The past is the past and I do not think it should be the topic of this discussion. Lets talk about the good and the bad of the church today.
The good: The church through its influence brings food and education to masses of unfortunate poor people all over the world. Additionally by teaching the words of Jesus the church brings more order and peace into the world. All good things.
The bad: As any institution of man, it has its flaws, but by having the majority of its followers believe that the church's words are the words of God, people follow it blindly even when what is being preached makes no sense to our God given intellect.
I believe that the greatest harm to our environment is not CO2 or plastic or nuclear waste. The greatest threat to the biological balance of our planet, something that if to damaged might mean our demise, is the excess of people.
A scientist was given a Nobel prize for devising a strand of wheat that resisted plagues and could be stored better. He solved India's hunger problem. Then 25 year s later the country had an unprecedented populational explosion and today there are many many more starved. 30 years we had 3 billion people, now its 6 and in 30 years we are projecting to have 10 billion people. All of the must eat, must live somewhere, consume energy and create waste. No matter how efficient we are (as in the Indian wheat) if we don't control our fertility rate, we will destroy the planet. The Catholic church openly opposes planned families making contraception a sin and having the poorest and hungriest people multiply their families and their sorrows, perpetuating a cycle of poverty and dependence.
I believe other institutions (like the evangelical churches) could do much of the good that the Catholic church does, and without such rigid structure they might do less harm (motivating family planning and having their pastors getting married)
Too many things to write, but here are a couple of ideas. Hope no on is offended.
The Catholic church does have a chequered past and present, but so does any organized religion. But what is the alternative? Humanity needs some form of guidance and each individual should make up their own mind as to which of these religions they follow. Yes as an individual with my own spiritual beliefs I do have several bones to pick with the institution of the Catholic Church, but I have bones to pick with Lutheranism, Islam and Judaism as well. Once a religion becomes as organized and dogmatic as most of the big religions have become they wield an enormous amount of power over their followers and as the old adage goes power corrupts. Does this mean that Catholics/Muslims/Jews are all bad people or mindless drones? Certainly not. Religion has much to commend it and only truly becomes dangerous when wielded with intentions that are less than pure. Even with my disagreements with the Catholic Church over issues of faith and dogma I have chosen to put my eldest son in a Catholic School simply because at the core of the faith is a solid understanding of morality that I wish to have ingrained in him. I do agree with Tom’s assertion that a religious order should not pander to the whims of its followers otherwise it will lose its worth and pertinence. What we as individuals have to guard against is fanaticism and the intolerances that this often breeds.
This one was sent to me over the e-mail by my good friend Joyce, and I thought it ought to be here:
"Sir Morgan,
I tried to post a comment several times but kept getting error messages. Here is what I would have posted:
"As far as the guidelines spoused by the Catholic Church go, I do agree those principles are generally, basically positive. This doesn't mean I agree with all of them. For example, there are both men and women who have chosen to make significant personal sacrifice and dedicate their lives to the Catholic Church, but they don't seem to have the same access to God -- be it through the power of mediating absolution, blessing the terminally ill or other contributions reserved for the special few.
I also think a distinction must be made between the Church's principles and the behavior of the Church's representatives and members. I am not talking about the people who try but stumble. I am referring to the people who don't even make an attempt to follow the principles, or who think they are above the Church's requirements. Obviously, this is especially serious in the case of certain priests. From my experience, members of other religions do seem to be more careful in differentiating their personal choices from their religions' guidelines.
As for the Church's historical (or even current) sins, my perspective is that they were perpetrated by people who used the Church as an excuse for horrible acts that helped them maintain power. I am no Bible expert, but I think the Catholic ideal is a kind one. Whether that is reflected in its leaders is another story..."
In summary, I think the Catholic Church is basically a good thing, but it is still way too susceptible to the human element.
Joyce"
First I'd like to thank all of your very pertinente comments. They are as helpful and as important to me as my own. Here's a few thoughts on populational control:
1. India and China, the two most populous countries in the world, are not predominantly or historically Catholic. As you can see, the populational problem is not a matter within the competence of the Church to resolve.
2. The Church has to be consistent. It teaches Truth. A part of this Truth is that people should be responsible with the act of making love. This responsibility is manifest in the fact that the Church does not condone free sex, pre-marital sex or extra-conjugal sex. However, the Church sees sex as the human contribution for God's act of creation. As such, it is a howly thing meant to give God his right to generate new life through Nature. Giving a Catholic a condom is like giving a candy bar to a diabetic. If he cant use it, why carry it?
3. The Church's mandate is to announce the Truth. Whether people follow it or not is a matter for their own concience and God-given free will. Whether concience is ruled by conviction or by convenience is also a matter for the individual to decide. However, the Church cannot allow itself to be corrupted into announcing something other than the Truth of its Faith.
4. Besides, the Church makes its contribution in populational control inforcing it in its own ranks, and people still criticise the Church on selibacy... Tsc. Tsc.
Thanks everyone!
Could the church not encourage poor married couples to use birth control while making love, even provide contraceptives ans sexual education to married couples such as pills or condoms and the menstrual cycle/fertility cycle? That would help these poor people tremendously and not go against the love making...
If left to our animalistic senses, even when married, we will have dozens of kids...
Also China is the most populous country in the world, but by not having any religious doctrine it has the most rigorous and controlled fertility rate in the world. I personally believe the best way to control fertility is not through force as in China, but through education and womens rights. All countries where women can work with rights similar to men and have education have a very controlled fertility rate, as in northern Europe.
Either that, or just plain chaste celibacy.
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