A Familar Image Of My Youth
A friend of mine has a private blog and he was discussing a family member, as well as his own resentment, with the Catholic Church. I can relate to this myself. My Mother harbors a deep rooted mistrust of the church due to an experience she had as a child. Many, many people distrust the church due to the shame filled behaviors that were inflicted upon them. I am finally at peace with the church, after eight years of Catholic school. I don't practice or uphold most of the church's beliefs, but I'm respectful of those who do. In recent years it has come to light, that the church has been betraying its followers and Christian values for ages. We must validate those who were betrayed. They don't want to hear,
"Its not all priests, some are good."
Validation of painful feelings, is the only way we that can permit ourselves and others to connect with a Higher Power. Spiritual connection, not religion, benefits all of us, globally. It is the act of compassion that helps lead one another too a place of serenity. People who are in pain with the church don't need condescending remarks (i.e. "I'll pray for you"). They need someone to listen, not minimize or try to make it ok. Betrayal never feels ok. When it comes to the church, empowerment seems to be the place it falls short. I seek to empower myself and therefore empower those around me, regardless of the difference in experience.
A Familar Image Of My Youth
| Posted by: Tony | April 22, 2004 08:12 AM |
My opinion on the Roman Catholic Church is likewise tarnished by my exposure to its ……well no better word than hypocrisy will do. A good catholic for a large section of my life I was almost assured my place in Heaven until I started research into comparative religion (to find out how wrong everyone else was…!) and began asking questions. I won’t bore you with the details but the outcome was I lost my reservation in Heaven and came close to excommunication before I chose to excommunicate myself and become one of the lost. Well they see it as lost, I see it as free. The RC Church is essentially a large corporation and uses the methods of management used in like corporations. The lower management lay–members, Deacons, Priests etc, are given the information front line workers need. Bishops and Archbishops are middle management with the Vatican as senior management with the Pope as CEO. Lower management do not need to know all the strategic aims of the senior management as long as they carry out the implementation of delivery as required. In return all levels of management will protect the core business – the selling of the Roman Catholic view of Christianity – and anyone involved in the delivery of the core business. To allow there is a problem in the management structure (say a paedophilic priest) is to allow there is a problem with the management model as something was allowed to happen that was not foreseen by procedure rules. Better to close ranks and hide the problem rather than admit upper management were wrong. Hypocritical I say, for an example take the stance on contraception. The Pope issues a Bull banning the use of contraception. This works it’s way through management to the front line workers where it becomes a matter of Dogma. Contraception is a sin, pure and simple. The Pope was speaking ex-cathedra (directly from God). Yet if you challenge the position upper management come back and says it was more a direction and not a law – this does not help the vast majority of believers who cannot tell or are not instructed as to the subtle difference between what is Dogma and what is dogma with a small d. I have had fights a-plenty over this with devout Catholic theologians who insist I do not understand the meaning of Dogma and it’s not always the undisputable belief of the church but sometimes a direction. Thus you can have your cake and eat it, the upper management do not say it is optional and the believer dares not go against church teaching that it is a sin. Nowadays this has changed a little but the fact still remains that the upper management are there to protect the core business in any way it sees necessary and will do what it will to keep it so. I blame St Paul. The entire RC Church grew from his teachings and Paul was instrumental in the first management coup. Paul never met Jesus but when he lived there were plenty alive that did. In fact the church instigated by Jesus was being continued by his brother and the remaining disciples. However Paul said his relationship was with the risen Christ so rejected the teaching of those who were instructed by Jesus and carried on his teaching. Paul won because he had the management skill to sell to the Romans and spread his message across markets while the original church stuck to Jews only. Just like the war between Betamax and VHS for market share the one with the widest user base won in the end – only in this case they also got to write the Bible! |
| Posted by: Eric Forrest | September 30, 2004 02:37 AM |
I would just like to make one thing clear: The only good reason to believe in anything is because it is true. In fact, it isn't even acceptable to reject something as untrue simply because those who practice it are hypocrites. If I told you that child abuse was immoral, and then I went and strangled my son, it would be ridiculous to claim that my statenment that child abuse was immoral was incorrect. God Bless, Eric |