The Catholic Church

omnicorp

You go in, you give some money, you avail of the service.
They pay the employees wages, have billions in Assets, own a country and make major contributions to charity.
It is a major political power, a great source of charity, employment and artwork. Not to mention all its land yet as a Religion the Catholic Church is failing.

People don’t want any of these, they want, they need a Faith. The church is too tied up with Ritual, Tradition and Power to realise that it is not working to convince people to join it. It’s outdated policies and failure to act with the times are costing it dearly
Less priests a re being ordained than ever, parishes are merging because of a lack of priests and funds, old rural churches are lying abandoned, it’s reputation is tarnished because of it’s failure to act on the Child Abuse Scandal early enough.

People want something to believe in. But the church isn’t providing that. When Constantine made Christianity the State Religion, he condemned it to evil, instead of expanding as a Faith, it was now expanding as a Political and Military Force, It was Corrupt. Wars were fought in the name of “Religion”, Popes lavished money on themselves in the name of “Religion”, artwork, Cathedrals and expensive projects dominated the Church during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

People write to the Newspapers about their “x points for improvement in the Catholic Church”, polls are conducted and reports written but really, it can all be traced to two words, “Power Corrupts”. And it has corrupted the church, if it were to relinquish its money, its assets and most of all, it’s power, it might improve.
If it were to cease being a charity, a Political Force, a Tourist attraction and a country, and start being a Religion, it might just improve.

It’s not too late, it’s never too late.

Excelsior

Catholicism is growing at a faster rate around the world today than at any time since the 1st Century.

Godkickingboots

Yes, to some degree

Excelsior, you are amazingly wrong, for no other reason than the Catholic Church didn't exist during the first century. Did you just make that up, or what?

neuro-praxis

Good book on the subject at hand.

Indeed there was no Roman Catholic Church with the hierarchy we know today in place, but "catholic" means "universal", and regardless of what the Jesus Seminar would like us all to believe, there was undoubtedly an apostolic movement that in the broadest of senses grew into the Roman Catholic Church.

I link to one book of many that describes the massive growth.

Godkickingboots

Yes, to some degree

Indeed, there was no Roman Catholic Church in the first century as we know
it today, the name 'Catholic Church' wasn't even coined until 107, in a
letter written by St. Ignatius. Even then, the church was anything but
Roman; Ignatius was being carted off to Rome to get martyred. Nor was it
universal, there were still maaaaasive schisms going on, all that Arian
unpleasantness was still to come and the best and brightest of Christ's
followers were still trying to figure out if they had one, two or three
god(s).
All the beliefs that made up what was to become the Roman Catholic Church
were compiled, discussed and voted on in 325 at The Council of Nicaea.
That's the earliest feasible origin date of the RCC.

So when you say "there was undoubtedly an apostolic movement that in the
broadest of senses grew into the Roman Catholic Church", that's true if by
broadest possible sense you mean lots of disparate apostolic groups that
talked and fought for centuries and then voted on a compromise. And that's
pretty broad.

Anyways, getting back on topic, I think the original poster was talking
about the lagging of the faith in First World countries where access to
media and education exposes all the aforementioned faults to the general
public. He mentions the lack of priests, merging of parishes, but that's
only a problem in Europe and the like, where the Catholic faith is slowly
losing ground. There's a super abundance of priests and parishioners in
places like Africa and Asia, where the growth rate of Catholicism is
phenomenal.

So as long as there's 120+ million Roman Catholics in Africa, especially
with the birth rate and missionary work, and millions more in South America
and Asia, the Church won't have any good reason to change it's policies to
appease a tiny market share of offended Westerners. They can import priests to solve any problems that the low ordination rates creates.

Current growth rate of humanity is about 1.5%. Growth rate of Catholicism
is 1.3 or 1.4%. It'll be a long time until they have to worry about
failing.

Oh, Neuro-Praxis, that book is about the rapid growth of primitive/Pentecostal Christianity around the world, not specifically Catholicism. Though the primitive angle does kind of tie in with my point about Africa, they're pretty receptive to it. Absolutely, Pentecostal Christianity has a massive growth rate, about 8% annually if I remember correctly, but we're talking purely about Catholicism.

Manach

Interesting post of OmniCorp.
My view is that the Church exists as a seperate society dedicated in theory to the propagation of the Faith, a type of Holy doctrine DNA, to spread the message throught the Ages.
Omnicorp mentions the when Constantine legalimised the Church and gave it offical state backing. However prior to that,
the Church was a prosectuted sect, and as such was in direct opposition to secular authority. From this legacy, it seems that the Church maintains its own laws and support structures in parallel to the state. As such it requires a revenue stream.
At present, the government taxes both my income and purchases. Quite involunteerly on my part I assure you . However the monies I give to the Church are voluntary, to be used in maintaince, works of charity, payment to illegimate ... (skip that last one). I really don't expect any back from it. How that money is spent is an internal matter, though I admit, some congregation oversite would be of benifit at a parish level.

omnicorp

Yes, to some degree

I was talking about the Church beuing corrupt.
I mentioned falling numbers in the West but my main point is it being corrupt.

If it's a religion, it doesn't NEED to be a Political Power, super rich or a heirarchy.
Nor can it survive being a woman-hating organisation based on "religion"

Godkickingboots

Yes, to some degree

Yes, the Church is corrupt, and woman-hating, and everything else you can say about it, but this is not a new development. You might as well be shocked that Muslims are killing in the name of Allah all of a sudden.

You say that the Church doesn't need to be a political power, super rich or a hierarchy, but these things are and always have been part of what the RCC is. It was created and established as state religion with the approval of Constantine, and from day one was the hierarchical political power that you seem to think it only recently turned into. You're right; if it were a religion, it wouldn't need money and power in the massive amounts it holds them today, but it's not just a religion, never has been. It was instigated as the organization you see and despair at today.

If you say the Catholic Church is corrupt, you mean the concept itself, not just the present manifestation of it.

And as far as saying it's never too late to change, well that's not an option for the Church. The Pope's been infallible since 1870 you see, so making changes to the degree you're proposing would upset their 130-odd year record of being perfect. "Moving with the times" and updating their dogma is simply flat out not an option for an organization that claims divine intervention with regards to their mission statement.

If you want the Catholic Church to relinquish its money, its assets, it’s power, to cease being a charity, a Political Force and Tourist attraction because you feel that they're getting away from what it really means to be a religion, you mean you want someone to start a new Christian religion.

They did. It happened about 500 years ago and we call it the Reformation.

omnicorp

Yes, to some degree

Religion controled by the state is completely different from what I'm talking bout

Godkickingboots

Yes, to some degree

Then what ARE you talking about? Sure, it's an autonomous organization now, I only mentioned state controlled religion because that was what the RCC started off as.

omnicorp

Yes, to some degree

it didn't start off like that.
It started off as a group of followers and preachers of Christ.
Constantine made it the State Religion in the 4th Century.

Godkickingboots

Yes, to some degree

omnicorp wrote:

it didn't start off like that.
It started off as a group of followers and preachers of Christ.
Constantine made it the State Religion in the 4th Century.

Now I understand. Omnicorp, you are confused. When you say " it didn't start
off like that" you are referring to Christianity, not Roman Catholicism.
I will lay it out for you.

Before the first Nicaean Council, there was no universally recognised
orthodox creed. There were lots of groups, big and small, all that followed
different kinds of Christianity, like today. None of these groups were the
Roman Catholic Church; it didn't exist yet.

Then Emperor Constantine called together around 250 prominent Christian
figures and told them to come up with a universal (or Catholic) creed to
promote a united Christian Empire. They discussed things for a few months,
all of them chipping in their own beliefs and opinions on all matters
Christ-related, and in the end they had the finished product; The Roman
Catholic Church. Constantine had asked them for a state religion, and they
gave him one.

There's lots more to the story after that, the Empire shifting between
Catholic and Arian Christianity, but you can read that for yourself if
you're bothered. The point is; the Roman Catholic Church started off as a
political power, embroiled in matters of state, gathering wealth and all
the other things you complained about in your initial post. There were
times when the various early brands of Christianity were persecuted, but
there never was a time when the Roman Catholic Church was a "persecuted
sect" because it was created to be a state religion. Constantine didn't
just make a pre-existing religion the state religion, he order that a
single, unifying state religion be made out all the pre-existing conflicting
available Christian religions.

Hope that makes what I've been saying clearer.

Manach

This is a partisan reply to a partisan prior post. For me Christianity has a 2000 year history with RC being a branch of it, which perhaps might not agree with your rather narrow world-view, which I presume you that Christianity/ Protestantism sprung from the brain of Martin Luther during the Reformation.

I have not poured over the histories of the early church but offhand from our own RC traditional, the doctrine of Apostolic Succession holds from the original Peter to the present Pope. The strand of Christianity that makes up the Church dates from pre-Constantine . I regard the council called by the Emperor a re-organisation that was needed to transition the faith from a dissident movement to one which could operate in a centralised empire wide fashion. This was in the most part done by the churchmen themselves. Having to work with temporal power does not necessarily mean corruption; the alternative being I suppose remaining in the catacomb ghettos and enjoying their smug self righteousness.

omnicorp

Yes, to some degree

I knew about that, but then why are we part of an "organisation", rather than a religion?

Godkickingboots

Yes, to some degree

Manach wrote:

This is a partisan reply to a partisan prior post.

Duly noted. I do admit I am partial to history over doctrine.

Manach wrote:

For me Christianity has a 2000 year history with RC being a branch of it, which perhaps might not agree with your rather narrow world-view

No, that is exactly what I said, and it totally agrees with my narrow world-view. Read the second paragraph of my previous post. Christianity does have a 2000-ish year history. Catholicism has a 1675-ish year history. It is an early branch of Christianity, like Arianism, Nestorianism or the Monophysites were. I have said all this, just like you did just there. I don't understand how you interpreted my post to think I disagree with the quote.

Manach wrote:

which I presume you that Christianity/ Protestantism sprung from the brain of Martin Luther during the Reformation.

You presume me? I don't understand this either. Christianity started with followers of Jesus Christ a couple of millennia ago. Protestism started when reformers like Luther, Calvin and Zwingli wanted to get back to early Church's styles of faith that they felt had been lost under Catholicism. I hope that answers whatever you were asking/saying.

Manach wrote:

I have not poured over the histories of the early church but offhand from our own RC traditional, the doctrine of Apostolic Succession holds from the original Peter to the present Pope.

If you have not studied the Church's history, and instead choose to believe in this doctrine, then that is good for you. But it doesn't make it true. I would appeal to you to read up on the topic. In a history book, mind you.

Manach wrote:

The strand of Christianity that makes up the Church dates from pre-Constantine .

Parts of it do, yes. Look, I assume you're a church-going man. I assume you recite the Nicaean Creed at mass? All the things listed in that Creed is the final result of lots of people discussing lots of matters and coming up with the RCC. Before this, there was no single group that held the beliefs that the RCC do. For example, the Council decided the exact nature of the Holy Trinity once and for all, settling with the idea that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit were 'of one substance'. Again, read up on this.

Manach wrote:

I regard the council called by the Emperor a re-organisation that was needed to transition the faith from a dissident movement to one which could operate in a centralised empire wide fashion. This was in the most part done by the churchmen themselves.

Indeed, somewhere in the region of 220-318 ( no one's really sure) churchmen did attend and re-organize the dissident faiths into one Empire-friendly religion; the RCC. This was arranged and helped along by Constantine.

Manach wrote:

Having to work with temporal power does not necessarily mean corruption; the alternative being I suppose remaining in the catacomb ghettos and enjoying their smug self righteousness.

In the RCC's case, it did lead to corruption. As for alternatives, we can only speculate about what might have been.

omnicorp wrote:

I knew about that, but then why are we part of an "organisation", rather than a religion?

Hey, it's your choice. If you are PROTESTing against the Church's actions and dogma, then why be a part of it? (Not rhetorical)

omnicorp

Yes, to some degree

I don't know.
There are worse religions out there.
And worse branches of Christianity.

There aren't any REALLY convincing BRANCHES (Christianity i itself is V. good) out there

Manach

... well I once did a which Religion suits you best multi-choice test and for meit came up with Mormanism. I think RC was third closest choice BTW. .

I would appeal to you to read up on the topic. In a history book, mind you
On a lighter note, Godkickingboots, just wait 1 more month and I'll have a history qualification form Uni, getting the results from the exam God Willing, .

omnicorp

Yes, to some degree

Mormanism? isn't that the Religion that allowed Multiple Wives, was Racsist and is accused of brainwashing people?

JustHalf

Manach wrote:

... well I once did a which Religion suits you best multi-choice test and for meit came up with Mormanism. I think RC was third closest choice BTW. .

That's nothing. I did that test too, and I got "Mahayana Buddhism". :eek:

Manach

Mormanism? isn't that the Religion that allowed Multiple Wives
mmmm Multiple Wives .... Oh grief, multiple mothers-in-law ...

As for the charge of being racist, it should be noted that early in Mormon history that they got into signifcant trouble in the Old West by their fair and equal treatment of the Native Americans; who I think they regarded as being one of the tribes of Israel.

omnicorp

Yes, to some degree

well, the Catholic Church is a BIT Homophobic and anti-Woman