That Roman Catholic clerics swear absolute and total loyalty to the Pope, and thereby to the Church which in effect is the Pope, is an additional burden because it renders it difficult for men of the cloth who are concerned about illicit church activities to inform secular authorities, media, or the public. Also ethically dangerous is the belief that being the representatives of a moral purposeful God inspires people to avoid the temptations that invariably come with unaccountability. Those who believe they are working for God are in chronic danger of believing that they are where they are because of the deity's will, and that whatever they do is the result of and expresses his will even if it contravenes human laws and norms. At the same time, the public, media and government often allow religious officials more leeway than is received by the laity or government employees under the naà ¯ve presumption that sincere agents of the moral creator are less likely to commit crimes, giving clerics greater hidden space to commit and get away with crimes -- therefore religious officials ironically do not enjoy the constraints of law that help the laity stay within the law. Adding to the problem is the difficulty that members of a faith have in accusing their Representatives of God of inappropriate activities, either because of internal fears of contradicting their own confession, or in the face of often intense pressure from the religious authorities to not embarrass the religion. In innumerable cases people, especially youth, who have made legitimate charges against clerics have been accused of lying by relations, other fellow laity, and officials who refuse to believe that God's servants could be guilty of such inappropriate behavior.
Then there is the men problem. In that men run the church. If there is one thing that should be clear by now it is that males should never ever be allowed to run major systems without a lot of female help. This is being demonstrated by scientific research. The more women executives there are in the higher echelons of businesses the better run and more profitable they tend to be (www.womensmedio.com/lead/87-women-on-corporate-boards-make-good-business-sense). The best-run 1st world nations (www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP07398441_c.pdf) have the highest proportion of women politicians.
The more sensible among Catholics -- those who roll their eyes at much of what their church is up to but hope to save it -- resort to the defense of the positives; the wishful view because the church favors some progressive policies it is ripe for greater reform. And it is true that the church no longer tortures and burns people to death or goes after the Jews, has a generally pro modern science attitude, opposes the death penalty, warns against the dangers of free wheeling private enterprise, provides charity, and so forth. But the attitude of the church towards pregnant women is Taliban level in its barbarity, and its tyrannical all boy structure is medieval feudalism in the 21st century. The positives do not make up for the horrid negatives, and reform is very unlikely to suppress the negatives enough to legitimize the syndicate.
Many Catholics lay and clerical are fine and decent folk who are opposed to many of the policies of their church. You good people need to take a hard look at your relationship to the organization and what you are going to do about it. If you think that the Vatican can remain a sovereign dictatorship run by a bunch of guys who demand obedient loyalty, and that it will reform in a serious way, you are foolishly naà ¯ve. If you continue to support the system by attending services and contributing money you are enabling the dysfunctional autocracy. This is true even if you are working to liberalize the church within the context of its structure since the chance that will work is vanishingly small. And the situation for decent Catholics is grim. Because of the Mussolini treaty it is not obvious how the Vatican can be stripped of its nationhood, or made democratic. The only legal means may be voluntary internal reformation, but the patriarchal power structure is hardly likely to give up its marvelous privileges as long as enough conservative Catholics provide their enthusiastic support (especially the money needed to operate the Vatican as an independent state). One mechanism for destroying the power structure may be the forced legal route. If the Pope and other church leaders are rendered subject to criminal prosecution by and in other nations, then they could end up isolated in the Vatican, leaving the scheme untenable (info here).
Because reforming the church from within not a practical enterprise, caring Catholics should get up and leave. If enough members do so then the institution will become a pale shadow of its former self, impotent to distort modern societies and murder pregnant women, and that would be a good thing.
And before I forget, the existence of Protestant denominations and other religious sects that strive to legally prevent women from enjoying their reproductive rights is similarly dubious.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
