I know I upset a lot of people here when I criticize the hierarchy-

[hedgehog]

here is an explanation of where I am coming from -

"The question is why would a good man with a good heart, as he surely is, think twice about his responsibility to take moral and legal steps to stop a child predator from preying on more children everywhere, some of them for years at a time?

The answer to that question is a simple one: It is that the kind of "blind obedience" once theologized as the ultimate step to holiness, is itself blind. It blinds a person to the insights and foresight and moral perspective of anyone other than an authority figure.

Blind obedience is itself an abuse of human morality. It is a misuse of the human soul in the name of religious commitment. It is a sin against individual conscience. It makes moral children of the adults from whom moral agency is required. It makes a vow, which is meant to require religious figures to listen always to the law of God, beholden first to the laws of very human organizations in the person of very human authorities. It is a law that isn't even working in the military and can never substitute for personal morality.

From where I stand, if there are any in whom we should be able to presume a strong conscience and an even stronger commitment to the public welfare, it is surely the priests and religious of the church. But if that is the case, then the church must also review its theology of obedience so that those of good heart can become real moral leaders rather than simply agents of the institution.

A bifurcation of loyalties that requires religious to put canon law above civil law and moral law puts us in a situation where the keepers of religion may themselves become one of the greatest dangers to the credibility -- and the morality -- of the church itself.


http://ncronline.org/blogs/where-i-stand/divided-loyalties-incredible-situation


I would add that while Sister Chittister is discussing the responsibilities of priests, I think her words apply to all Catholics - we are all responsible for using the brains and consciences that God gave us, and we can't abrogate that responsibility by handing it over to another, not even the Pope!

[Matilda]

1. I absolutely agree, hedgehog!

I know many good people amongst the laity and local priests, but I have a big problem with the Vatican. It really
does seem at times as though the basic messages of the Gospels have been overridden by a series of rules and
regulations designed more to uphold the power of the Church than to care for the wellbeing of the souls entrusted
to it.

I think there is a paternalism rampant within the Church, and it seems as if they're stuck somewhere in the Middle
Ages - they don't realise that today not only can most people read and write, but have access to an enormous
amount of information. God gave us brains and we are capable of using them.

And if anyone high-profile enough to be bothersome tries to mount a reasoned argument against any of their decrees,
they always have the ultimate weapon - excommunication. I truly think that is a pathetic abuse of power - to me
it says clearly "we don't have any rational argument to beat you with, but we have the last word anyway."

I don't think the Catholics are the only church who are into power though - it's pretty pervasive. I sometimes
wonder whether only the Quakers, with their non-hierarchical structure, have got the balance right.


Edit: sp

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. It's nothing of the kind. It's a misguided prioritzation of clerical 'esprit de corps'

over their primary duty as pastors, shepherds of their flocks, of all Christ's secular flock. It is incomprehensibly irrational, other than in terms of the psychological defence-mechanism of denial.

Clericalism can encourage infantilism and blind obedience on the part of lay-people, indeed false brethren in the hierarchy and the laity may espouse blind obedience if they perceive it, however subliminally, as serving their purpose. But neither faith nor unquestioning obedience need be wholly blind. The Apostle's believed in and obeyed Christ, despite the fact that he presented them with mysteries that it took the Fathers centuries to unravel and fit into a coherent theology, because they had the soundest reasons to trust Christ's authority. Catholics place a similar trust in the approved, mainstream Catholic theology, as expounded in the Catechism.

[demosincebirth]

3. Its been decades since they've been in the trenches. And they forgot

what its like to be among the troops.