Is the Catholic Church a Force for Good In the World?

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.

Defender of the Faith?

I was once again dragged into a debate about the modernisation of the Catholic Church. There is a very simple concept that a lot of people do not grasp, which is the fact that the Church is not allowed to change the Faith it defends and upholds.

The Church’s holy mission is to announce, safeguard and keep Divine Truth as it was delivered, in trust, by God and by His Son Jesus Christ, whilst He walked amongst us here on Earth. It is not within the competence of the Pope and of the Church to modify this Faith in any way. It is God’s alone to do with as He pleases. To the Church falls only the duty of defending It and making It available to all who would willingly partake in God’s blessing.

Every time the Church has allowed itself to be either seduced or bullied into conceding to changes to the precepts of Faith; it fell in contradiction and disgrace. Presently, our Pope is accused of being a reactionary on account of performing his most solemn duty of returning to the True Path that is preserving our Faith from corruption into something else. For this very reason, the Church is not a democratic institution. It cannot be!

Nowadays, no one is obliged to pursue Catholicism, but to those of us who chose it as their path to God and to a happier life, the precepts defended by the Church are absolute.

Living on Borrowed Time

Did you ever realise that we live in a Borrowed Earth? Did you ever realise that when you function with an energy matrix based on dead things thousands of years old, you are borrowing energy from an ecosystem long dead? It's like using an inheritance to sustain a lifestyle that you cannot keep up with your own job's sallary. Eventually, your borrowed money runs out and you have to return to the austere ways you should always have kept. It isn't easy, but it is necessessary.

It much amazes me to think that there are people still resilient to the concept of Global Warming. Even in this day in age, when credible scientists both public and private have endorsed the occurrence of the phenomenon, there are those amongst us who choose to label the fact a fraud.

These same scientists and several world governments acknowledge the fact that Global Warming, though a cyclic natural event, is happening with an intensity never before witnessed by the Earth on account of OUR influence. That there are people who prefer to think that there is a nefarious economic plot behind this affirmation is cause for concern; to say the least. I have personally heard all sorts of conspiracy theories surrounding the fact that characterises the Global Warming Crisis. They are often complex and they normally revolve around the instinctive desire to maintain the comforts of excess. I acknowledge that it isn't easy to give up certain comforts, but we must each and every one of us take responsibility for all our deeds. What is the cost of your little selfish comforts? Who are you killing? Who are you condemning to want and hunger?

The people I speak of are not at all very distant from each of us. In most cases, they ARE us. These are people who prefer the maintenance of our present way of life where consumerism and the current power matrix of fossil fuels are concerned. These are people who are unwilling to give up their personal cars and their absurd generation of rubbish and pollution, just so that they may continue to surround themselves with trinkets that they soon tire of and throw away.

My appeal to you, the reader, is that you open your eyes to the fact that we are victims of our own surrender to those things that will never satisfy us; for there is no fulfilment in HAVING a thing. We must remind ourselves that we simply borrow this Earth from all generations of our species – past and present – and that those things we do come to own are as ephemeral as ourselves and not always worth having.
True fulfilment is found in BEING someone to someone else. True fulfilment is in friendship and in honour and in a clear conscience. True fulfilment is in all that, which the ethics of consumerism have been so viciously attacking over the decades to supplant and replace with the inequitable and ever insatiable values of ownership. Open your eyes and look about you and, when you search your own feelings, try to remember what it was that ever made you happy. Was it ever the THING that you owned, or was it in the PERSONS you’ve shared them with? Did they like you for who you were, or for the things you displayed? When you answer THAT question, you will certainly realise that you have been investing in the THING, when you should have very simply have been inventing in the PERSON.

Visiting the Awakening Giant

I've just returned from a visit to the USA after sometime distant from the World's defender of democracy. I could witness to great satisfaction that some aspects of American Society that gave them credit in the past were still there, but I could also feel some old evils still present as well. As with many trips, there were good things and bad things to be gathered into my repertoire of experiences.

For instance, it was somewhat disheartening to see that many of the habits Americans have acquired during the age of Petrol Burning and Consumerism are still strong and show no signs of change. It was appalling to witness the waste of electrical energy perpetrated by Americans; as exemplified by shops in Miami leaving their air conditioning at full strength for the benefit of a single shop clerk whilst keeping the doors to their shops open to the streets on a hot September day. Equally disheartening was to find that the city of Miami proposes no evident recycling programme and that citizens do not have a habit of recycling. The level of waste generated by packaging was also noteworthy. Packagings for individual portions of foodstuffs seem like such a waste when you think that the packaging is far more expensive and harmful to nature than what’s inside of it. When will we all learn that petrol is finite and that we need to take charge of changing our habits? When will we learn that there are consequences to the predatory way of life proposed by Consumerism? The resilience against the changing of habits I felt from the average Americans with whom I had the chance to discuss such matters was another subject for surprise. It is as if they are surrounded in a womb of dreams and I was intent on ripping them from the warmth of their delusion. I was amazed to see many of them still blindly denying global warming as if it was a plot against their economy.

Yet, this is a people noteworthy for their capacity to seek justice, and therein is their hope for achieving new socioeconomic balance for themselves. This is a people proud of their history, their democracy and their will to be a strong nation. They are a people still investing in equal rights and still seeking to improve the availability of opportunity to all. I saw this when I visited the well tended University of Rochester, the fabulous Metropolitan Museum, and a somewhat degraded Museum of Natural History that still had much to offer its patrons. This was the reassuring point of my visit and it gave me a glimpse of hope in that the American people will find new balance to cope with the challenges of a new age in the History of Mankind. I was pleased to see that people on the streets are less indifferent to one another than they once were. I was happy to witness peaceful civil protests by public workers who debated the hard decisions their state governments were forced to make when faced with economic strangleholds; for it felt that they were talking to one another about issues of unsustainable concessions and the compromises that they are faced with to resolve them. I was content in a new government that is intent on promoting a just and more encompassing health system, and that is engaged in promoting a more sustainable economic model for Americans. The fact that American electrical resources are greatly a result of the burning of fossil fuels notwithstanding, I was glad to see that Americans are seeking automobiles that rely on hybrid electric and economical combustion engines, and that their government is sponsoring this change.

In summary, the wheels of change have begun to roll for this great nation. Though it will take time to see palpable results, I was left with every confidence that change will come – and for the better – for Americans and the world that looks on them as leaders.

A New "Wisdom"

This one was learned first hand: Never give up fighting for your beliefs, whatever they might be. Never delegate onto others the defence of your beliefs, whoever they might be.

The Price of Child Marketing

What price will we pay for instilling consumerism in our young? That is the question I ask myself every time I see an ad on TV targeting children in their tender years. This is as unethical and immoral a marketing manoeuvre as can be offered. Brilliant as it might be in commercial terms; this strategy of generating long-term consumers by robbing children of their childhood is a monstrous thing.

What need does a 6-year-old have of owning a mobile phone? None, I tell you, but the one generated by marketing and publicity. The same is true for young girls of 10, who truly shouldn’t be concerned about make-up, high heel shoes and “clothes that make her look thin and fashionable”. These and many other things are artificial necessities instilled into our children through the media and viral marketing to foment sales and benefit manufacturers of items not generally desired by children.

If you are not yet convinced, think of the foods your children seek out in the supermarket. How often have you seen your child pick up an orange or an apple? How many fruits and vegetables is your infant able to recognise and call by name? Yet, there are very few children who cannot recognise the brands and names of snacks and dainties; even the most obscure ones. This is a natural thing when you consider that they are bombarded by ads on TV telling them how “fun and delicious” it is to stuff themselves with tonnes of sugar, salt and fat.

It is undeniable that marketers and publicists play on the guilt of parents who have little time to spend with their children in the midst of the pressures of modern life. It is undeniable that it works. However, the short-term consequences of this marketing strategy is the generation of spoilt children, whose exacerbated consumerism is a thing that both destroys their childhood and values and also makes them unhappy insatiable addicts to buying things they never even enjoy. This is a sad situation, but the more ominous threat is in the long-term.

The long-term effect is indeed to manufacture insatiable consumers who try to quench the need for affection and self affirmation through the spending of money, but there is more: We are making inconsequential people who will be utterly unhappy with their meaningless lives of consumption and who will not know how to manage their disappointment. We are making adults who will be incapable of dealing with frustration, and who will react destructively about it. They will not know that they must restrain themselves from wanting what others are not willing to give, so they will shout at, strike and harm the objects of their frustration. They will be acting like children in tantrums; yet, they will be full grown adults with all of an adult’s power. This is something heartily to be avoided.

Since greed prevents marketers and administrators from exercising restraint in this unethical targeting of children with marketing campaigns, it is up to parents to impose some restraint on their children for their own benefit. It is, as it always was, ultimately the duty of a parent to offer their kids values greater and more fulfilling than mere consumerism. Give them love, and give them principles and give them the occasion to use and develop their imagination without the TV and electronic toys that play on their own. They may cry now, when you deny them that day’s new toy and that meal’s triple-chocolate muffin with some cartoon character’s face stamped on it, but tomorrow they will thank you for their healthy bodies and their free-thinking minds. Give them that opportunity.

Corporative Self-Destruction

My reflection today is on the moronic Human Resources policies of the large global corporations. I say they are idiotic because of the inherent myopia of widespread HR policies that aim at short-term savings in the value of salaries and lawful benefits awarded to their veteran employees. For several years, corporations have been employing a policy of dismissing expensive veteran employees to replace them with younger and cheaper newly graduated professionals.

The explanation offered for this self-destructive strategy is generally that the younger professional is theoretically up to date with market practices, tendencies and, though they require indoctrination and training in corporate culture, they should be just as capable as the veteran employee, who often needs theoretical recycling. This is all good and it all makes sense; at least on paper.

However, the practical reality of the matter is quite different. The CV of the newly graduated professional may reflect curricular proficiency, but the theoretical content of his/her education is no substitute for practical experience in the field. What an HR officer calls “vices” on the veteran employee, many executives call “savvy” or “wisdom”. To make matters worst, corporations are downsizing departments and handing the work volume of 2-3 veteran professionals into the care of a single novice. Downsizing and substituting an experienced veteran for a novice to save on the cost of the employee (salary + benefits) may seem smart on the short-term, but the long-term consequences are dire for corporations. Among them, we have:

1. An increase of mistakes in operations caused by the lack of practical experience and by ill dimensioned volume of work
2. An increase of operational costs caused by the above-mentioned inexperience
3. An increase of insecurity among employees, who are afraid to be laid-off at any time
4. Lack of loyalty to the corporation, as a result of the above-mentioned insecurity
5. An increase of information security problems as a result of the lack of loyalty
6. An increase of the incidence of sabotage as a result of dissatisfaction in the ranks
7. An adverse and unproductive working environment, where employees are busier tending the keeping of their position (covering-up mistakes etc.) than they are working towards corporate objectives

It is quite clear that given all of the aspects listed above, any savings conquered with the erroneous HR policies in effect today will result in palpable operational losses that will affect Marketing and Industrial costs negatively. Therefore, if there is any savings to be made in these destructive HR policies, such values will surely be supplanted by the losses incurred as a direct result of the same disastrous HR policies.

It is my opinion that, should HR departments persist is their wanton ways, they shall be responsible for a negative revolution in the way professionals deal with their employers. Better results should be obtained by providing competent professionals with security and peace of mind with which to develop their working potential, and by paying professionals what they are actually worth. It is past the time of maximisation of profits and time now for sustainable working relationships.