Why belong to a scandalized Catholic Church?
A miracle Church is still standing after 2000 years of onslaught
A sincere friend asked:
Question:
Catholic church (and basically this can apply to almost all organized religions) are the "bad apples" in the upper echelon - and especially the Vatican. I keep hearing about all the corruption and even Satanism/pedophillia some of them are involved in (maybe I watch and listen to too much social media as these theories are rampant there).
Response:
Why are organizations necessary?
Let's begin with the word "organization". Whenever humans gather together to meet a common goal, then we "organize". We form hierarchies and separate duties and responsibility based on expertise, talents and personality. This is true ubiquitously and seems to happen organically and naturally. In Organizational Behaviour we call it the 4 stages: (1) Forming (2) Storming (3) Norming (4) Performing.
The devil hates it when people come together for a common altruistic goal, like marriage, community, worship, or business, etc. His goal is to break it up (or get control of it). He's really good at it. Strong personalities, dysfunctional behaviour, selfish ambition, etc...
But without organization, humans are aimless wandering zombies, with no cohesion, no separation of duties and no coordination and no accomplishment. The devil is like a wolf who surveys the flock for the separated lamb. Loners don't usually do well in the spiritual walk because we are no match for the devil alone, but in a group we can win against the devil, if we have God leading us. Without unity we are like a helpless honey bee against a giant hornet. But with unity and God we can win...
Why is the Church necessary?
Jesus knew that He needed to create robust organization, the Church, where the leaders were servants, with the risen Jesus as its head. He appointed a leader of the apostles on earth, Peter (the first pope).
- The devil figured out what Jesus was up to and the war was on. The devil went after the apostles, 1 betrayed him, 1 denied him publicly, and 10 abandoned him. But Jesus outsmarted the devil and protected the 11 apostles from the Romans, using their sin of desertion.
- The devil countered with a persecution from the Romans and Jewish leadership. The apostles hid in the upper room.
- Jesus countered with the Pentecost. 120 disciples were in the upper room and Jesus sent the Holy Spirit upon them. This is the birth of the Church. Jesus gave these fearful fishermen supernatural courage, unnatural wisdom and they preached in public fearlessly. Thousands of people heard their preaching in their own languages and 3000 people joined that church that one day.(Acts 2)
- On through the centuries the devil attacked the Church, the Muslim attacks and the crusades, the scandals, the divisions, persecutions, martyrdom, propaganda against the Church, the Reformation, residential schools ... and yet EVERY attack by the devil to ruin the Church, Jesus countered. The Church survived and continued to grow.
- Fast forward to the 1920-1960's. The devil had a major apocalyptic attack up his sleeve. Homosexuality was hidden in society, and same sex attracted men were looking for a place to act out, to be respected, and to be unsuspected... the priesthood. They got into seminaries through deception, lying and created a network where they helped and promoted each other. They moved up through the ranks and some became bishops and cardinals. It was the "lavender mafia".
- These bishops and liberal gay theologians tried to liberalize Catholicism but the magisterial teachings held solid. The devil had to settle for scandal, and a big scandal it was.
- About 25-50% of nominal Catholics left the Church as the media amplified the scandal, dioceses had to go bankrupt under the legal fees and reparation payouts. The media talked about a Catholic genocide against native kids, although no actual graves have been found in two years, and no media has retracted.
- And yet the Church survives. The Catholic Church is the oldest organization in the world and still the largest denomination.
Napoleon Bonaparte once taunted a Catholic cardinal by threatening:
Your Eminence, are you not aware that I have the power to destroy the Catholic Church?
To which the cardinal quipped:
Your Majesty, we Catholic clergy have done our best to destroy the Church for the last eighteen hundred years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you.
The Church is still here after 2000 years of demonic onslaught
This is a testimony of God's protection and an indication that it is Christ's Church, rather than an indication of the devil's ownership of it. If the devil had his way, it would have been wiped out the Catholic Church in the first century.
Here's part of a talk "A Vision of the Future Church" by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI from a radio talk in 1969 before he was pope:
From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge—a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity.
As the number of her adherents diminishes, so she will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more like a voluntary society, entered only by free decision.
As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly it will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. ...
It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek.
The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will have to be shed.
One may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution—when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain—to the renewal of the nineteenth century.
But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church.
Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty.
Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.
And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times.
The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith.
She may no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.
Question: How do you deal with this, being Catholic at this time?
Response:
It's hard. My whole life I've always liked to be on the hip, cool, popular, winning team, not a team plagued with scandal. But our Lord said:
"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me." (Mat 5:11)
I find there is an significant negative attitude against Catholics from the Evangelical Churches. My prayer and efforts are for unity among brothers and sisters in Christ.
I love when Jesus asked Peter "Will you leave me too?" Peter answered "To whom shall I go, you have the words of eternal life?" (Jn. 6:68)
We were born for such a time as this and that the Lord has a purpose for us. We are extremely grateful to the martyrs and mystics who died and suffered over the millenniums so that we could be part of the Church in 2024.