What's Wrong...and/or Right...with the Catholic Church

Rapid Response for
SATURDAY and SUNDAY, November 10 and 11, 2012

AND WHAT ABOUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE 50 MILLION CATHOLICS IN THIS COUNTRY?

A good question; for there is no such thing as a "Catholic Vote" in this country, and there hasn't been one for many years.
Why? Because the hierarchical Church, trying very slowly to get out of the Middle Ages, has rendered itself irrelevant to the lives of many Catholics - especially to those of young and / or child-bearing ages, the "seed-corn" of the future Church. Indeed, it was only in the early 1990's that the Pope saw fit to forgive Galileo his "sin" regarding the heavenly bodies.
And this is not new. I grew up as - and still am - a good Catholic. In the early years, my parents and I knew many married couples who had stopped going to Church when they married...because they "didn't want to be hypocrites". They returned - after their child-bearing years. Why? You guessed it. The Church's stance on contraception...then and now. Except for the evil Popes of earlier centuries, and trying to get Fr. Martin Luther to sell indulgences, and the excesses of the Inquisition, this is the Church's deepest self-inflicted wound. And it has produced indirectly the epidemic of abortions during the last many decades. Totally unnecessary and not divined by Natural Law or by the Scriptures, in my opinion. Indeed, Pope Paul VI in 1968 had to vote down the strong majority contrary vote of his clerical Commission charged by him with addressing this issue, in order to perpetuate this folly. Here we speak, of course, only of contraceptives that prevent union of ovum and egg - and NOT of those abortifacients that function after a new human being has been created by that union.
Want more? The Church refuses to deal with the substantial body of scientific evidence indicating that Homosexuality is not a choice, but rather a biologic fact, determined by genetics and by the in utero environment of those individuals. Here we speak of moral and committed individuals - and not of the flaming and depraved libertines who gave us the spread of AIDS and who have contributed to our empty secular society.
And what is the Church's antidote for all this? Continuing to obstruct the spirit and intent of Vatican ll. Emphasizing the Magisterium rather than supporting and encouraging the Laity, the "Body of the Church". Producing a profusion of new Saints...with no apparent conception of the meaning of "inflation" and its effect on both faith in and the value of the currency. Even the important initiatives of the Catholic Bishops against aspects of ObamaCare are undercut by the Bishops' ineffectiveness in distinguishing contraceptives from abortifacients...a uniform ploy used by the other side.
Thus, the Catholic Church is becoming irrelevant to both Catholics and to their adversaries and enemies. And a "Catholic Vote" is non-existent.

It pains me to say all of this. But it must be said and heard. Indeed, I would begin by requiring periodic neuro-psychologic testing for all Bishops and certainly for the members of the Roman Curia.

GS