A contemplation that I have had recently was about religious reform in the Catholic Church, and my thoughts are these:

For the longest time I have always begrudged the Church for the fucked up shit it has condoned in the past. I'm sure many of you know what I am referring to, but here are some examples: conductions of the Crusades, allowance of the Spanish Inquisition, witchunts and heresy burnings of many innocent people, the suppression of scientific thought, turning a blind eye towards such human atrocities as the conquest and genocide of the Native American peoples, the subsequent slave trade, and the Holocaust. All of these are indictments of the Church's past history, however, I believe that the Church, under new leadership, is beginning to right its wrongs and try to promote a more positive image of itself for the future world. How is it doing this, you may ask. Well, one need look no further than the Second Vatican Council.

Through research, I have found that the Second Vatican Council was an enormous step taken by the Church to bring itself up to speed with the 20th century. Many of the new concepts brought on by Vatican II have "liberalized" a lot of older, traditional viewpoints, such as the Church's mission statement and its interations with other wordly faiths. No longer does the Church see itself as a superior amongst the other religions, but rather as an equal. This has paved the way towards priceless interfaith dialogue that hopefully will resolve many of the misconceptions and problems that exist in the world today. I firmly believe that if religious leaders from all faiths would talk to each other and be on the same page, then the world really could be a lot more peaceful than it is now. For too long people have been calling God down on their side of an argument and making a big deal out of everything. Today, with the exception of fundamentalist extremists, that form of patronage is no longer promoted by many faiths, and finally, the Church has seccumbed to this mordern day philosophy.

My questions is: for all you people out there who say the Church is a corrupt, manipulative piece of shit, can you really judge the present Church on the actions of the old Church? Does Vatican II and other Church reforms at least in part make up for all the wrongdoings it has committed? Can you forgive the Church? Think about it.

Only God can forgive the Church. http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif)

But to respond to your questions, I do believe that the Vatican has made significant attempts to adjust to the modern world, and those are to be applauded on a secular level. And no, you cannot truthfully judge the present Church based soley on the actions of the old Church. These reforms are a positive step in the right direction; a method to attempt to adjust to a modern world. However, I wouldn't say that these reforms are meant to make-up for any past wrong-doings, how could they? Decrees from the Vatican are just that, decrees. They cannot undue genocide, oppression or hatred which has been ingrained over the centuries.

Also, I don't believe the Vatican sees itself as an equal with other religions at all. That would defeat their very purpose for existence. Acknowledging the equality of other religions would be the equivalent to acknowlegding the equality of other deities - clearly not an option.

Thus, despite these reforms, the Catholic church is still a bastion of conservatism and is unlikely to implement the necessary changes to facilitate the inter-religious dialogue of world peace.

I don't judge the current Church corrupt because what it has done in the past, although I wouldn't ignore it as historical data. I judge it a hypocritical, corrupt, 'piece of shit' based on the way they are now.

Having hundreds of millions of dollars worth of artworks, artifacts, dresses, gold and other material things, isn't the sign I'm looking for from an body that preaches being humble and helping those less fortunate.

How do you figure the church is trying to change? Here's a little incident that happened to my best friends family.

my friends older brother recently rejoined the church, and was going to get baptised. He asked his family to be there, so they went. Well about 10 minutes after he was baptised, the preacher started his sermone. The first words out of his mouth, were about how homosexuals were all evil people and sinners. This mad his mother very angry because she doesn't share these beliefs. So she looked at her oldest son, and told him wasn't going to listen to that BS, and she was leaving with or without him. She got up gave the preacher a very dirty look and left. Her son followed saying he was sorry, and that he didn't know that was what the preacher was going to be speaking about.

Changing you say? I really don't see it myself, and this isn't an isolated incident.

There are preachers that actaully stand in front of schools telling those students that there all going to burn in hell for allowing gays to even exist!

[This message has been edited by Nemisis (edited 06-04-2004).]

I'm with Nemisis on this one. There are major problems with "the church", church culture, "the christian religion" and whatever. There's always seemed to be this undercurrent of people within "the church" that call the church to account, that are passionate about social justice, that are serious about discipleship. There's also been those that are concerned about power, social networking etc.

If christians started genuinely following Christ- without getting overly enamoured with stuff like "correct theology"- things things would be very different.

There's alot of people keen for it though- there's post-church, alternative worship, ecumenical and radical discipleship movements that are all moving towards a more genuine form of christianity and christian community.

Jesus, save us from your followers!

You cats do realize that the terms Catholic Church and Christianity are not equivalent, right?

Personally, LordJugz, I've no deep problem with that entity; however, in my life, I've met very few people who could actually be considered to truly strive for the Catholic ideals (whew, complicated syntax there). My viewpoint has, over the years, diverged sharply from the church; in technicality, I'm a lapsed Catholic. This has only marginal (at best) bearing on my life, as I currently live it.

"But Christ could certainly not have established the Church. That is, the institution we now call by that name, for nothing resembling our present conception of the Church - with its sacraments, its hierarchy, and especially its claim to infallibility - is to be found in Christ's words..."

-Leo Tolstoy

The past cannot be changed, however we must mind future and present as well, if the church changes to better, I think people might forgive it in future, but it will take time.

That post was the one my friend made. But here is my opinion on the church.

Religions are a man made thing. They are flawed beyond belief and that needs to be changed. There is no way that God (any God) will punish homosexuals, it doesn't make sense. The problem with todays churches are that they are way overopinionated! How can one preacher say that homosexuals are bad, and another (of the same faith) say that they are accepted by God?

How come 44 men were able to write the Bible without meeting eachother, and yet the church is so incredibly divided? Because they are overopinionated.

Jesus never shunned anybody, and yet these preachers think they are following in his footsteps. I think they are just full of shit and should be thrown out immediately.

In fact Jesus never created church, he was travelling and enlightening people.

The church became corrupted because it gained power over people, power stronger than any dictator could gain. They couldn't resist such tantation.

They established themselves as god's representatives, even now they manage to do shit "in His name".

Maybe losing the powers the church once had it will become something better. At least it is possible.