On 24 Apr., 12:15, e_space <[email protected]> wrote:
> analyzing religion from an heirarchy point of view, i see religious
> leaders as quite evil. religion is often used to control people
> through fear and intimidation, not love and guidance. the roman
> catholic religion for example, is the richest 'corporation' in the
> world, yet its converts are starving to death and dying of aids
> because they cant use contraception. many of the priests are
> pedeophiles who have been sheltered and moved around from one church
> to the other when scandals were about to break out. they have been
> associated with the mafia and murder and will not let females be
> priests. they live in mansions that are FAR beyond any dream home you
> and i would imagine, have michael angelo on the ceiling, walk around
> with massive crowns on their heads and gold jewelry that makes a
> rappers bling look like a cracker jack toy. jesus supposedly said,
> 'give up your riches and follow me'. i guess somewhere down the road,
> religious leaders sorta overlooked this admonition. i have nothing
> against those who go to church, and if it brings them happiness,
> great. just not my cup of tea...
>
There is a great deal of truth in what you write here, e, but also
large dollops of generalisation, inaccuracy and sloppy thinking which,
in my view, serve only to weaken your argument.
Those who know me better here are well aware of my extremely critical
position viz a viz the RC Church. Nonetheless, I feel I must clarify
some of the points you allude to.
Firstly, the "roman catholic religion" is not a "corporation" of any
kind, but rather a designation for over a billion adherents world-
wide, the vast majority of whom voluntarily associate themselves with
this belief, which is internally organised, according to its own
rules, as a "church". While you and I might regard the official RC
position on contraception, population control and HIV-AIDS as
extremely backward, irrational and regrettable, I must point out that
there is no way the RC Church can force its adherents to follow its
teachings, apart from the "moral" authority accorded to it by many of
those adherents.
The wealth of the RC Church is a difficult subject to discuss, as its
assets are legally in the hands of thousands of distinct organisations
and groups, some of which are quite wealthy, some of which are very
poor. The administrative centre of the Church, the Vatican City, is an
internationally recognised independent country, with its own laws,
maintaining formal diplomatic contacts with most countries in the
world. The present position of this entity is the result of 1700 years
of historical development. Much of its wealth is in the form of real
estate and artistic treasures, a lot of which (including the Sistine
Chapel - which I presume is what you meant with "michael angelo [sic]
on the ceiling") is open to public viewing for a modest fee - used to
maintain the substance of the area generally known as the "Vatican
Museum." The value of it all is priceless, but also practically
useless, since I know of no way in which it could be justly converted
into liquid assets (would selling it to Bill Gates or Roman Abramovich
- preuming they wanted to buy - really make the world better?). A
parallel example would be the Potala Palace in Lhasa (today
nationalised by the Chinese and turned into a museum) which includes
the tomb of the 13th. Dalai Lama, reportedly containing priceless
jewels and a ton of gold.
While the wearing of crowns remains a ritual/liturgical tradition in
the Orthodox Churches (particularly that of Russia) it has never been
a general part of RC liturgy and, in fact, even the Roman popes have
not worn the (till then) traditional tiara for the past fifty years.
The lack of openness and protection by many instances of Church
authority of many priests who have been accused of abusing children is
a scandal of horrific proportions. While not in any way comparable to
the suffering of the thousands of victims, there are also many
thousands priests, sisters, brothers and lay workers who are suffering
from the fall-out and many of them are struggling against corrupt and
encrusted structures within the organisation. My only regret about my
personal departure from the said organisation is the feeling I still
sometimes have that I was leaving a lot of honest, good friends to
carry on their struggle without me.
Francis
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
""Minds Eye"" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
