Is the Catholic Church more a force for good than not?

I have had a lot of experience dealing with Catholics and nonCahtolics and antiCatholics

so i am interested in the answer to this one question (seeing as how there is so much... uh... hostility?)

 

I would say more a force for good- even though I disagree with the Church itself on many, many issues, I also recognize that the Church does many good things. This frankly is just a gut feeling. If I really thought it through I might change my mind.

 

i tend to think that if you followed your gut feelings you would become catholic

i have had many experiences inside and outside the Church

inside is WAY better... LONG long story... and i say this despite numerous problems i have had in the Church.

that said, i dont have the least problem with anything the Church officially teaches...

i do have a problem with those in the Church who teach things the Church does not officially teach... "liberal" nuns/priests, parishioners,etc...

 

I'd have to say "the Church" has done more harm than good but individual Catholics have, on average, done more good than harm. That viewpoint isn't restricted to the Catholic faith though.

 

The catholic church is the largest and oldest criminal organization on the planet.

 

Having been born and raised Catholic, gone to Catholic school, and experienced much of the beauty of the Church....I feel it is a force for good......sometimes.

I am no longer a Catholic for a reason, this is because of the "other" times.

 

do u realize how little sense this makes?

if catholics are generally good poeple doing good things

it stands to reason the Church would be... since the Church is made up of human catholics...

not t mention tht the very Presence of Christ is there in the Church 24/7

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right

it stands against divorce/remarriage (serial divorce these days)

it stands against murder

stood against slavery LONG b4 it arrived on the N American continent

etc....

and u call it criminal

please

sounds like projecting or something

 

Who said anything about catholics? We are talking about the catholic church the organization. Not the catholic church the man.

By and large, yes, most catholics are good people. I agree. But the church hierarchy its self has been responsible for countless horrors throughout history. Thats fact.

 

I disagree. I see a huge and growing difference between the hierarchical organisation based at the Vatican and the various laymen around the world who follow the Catholic faith day-to-day. What the organisation says and does is often quite different to what the individuals say and do.

 

it makes no sense to leave a Church becasue of what some of its members do

and i dont feel that is the real reason u left anway

most people leave becaue of such things as

not being able to get a marriage annulled so they can marry someone else

being in an unlawful marriage...

the priest is not nice sometimes...

the parishioners are not always too great etiher.... etc

 

no, it is NOT a fact

u have been reading the poison that anticatholics write..

guy named Beottner wrote a really stupid book once... claimed that the Inquisition killed 50 million!!!!!!!!!!!

when the whole population of EUROPE at tht time was not even 50 mil

STUPID!

but uneducatd people believe this kind of thing... just because its in black and white pritn... also dumb

there were about 3000 people killed as a result of the Inquisition, over ALL those decades...

and ALL of those people had the chance to recant and save their lives

they didn't

and it was the secular forces (kings, etc) who put them to death.

many priests and bishops interceded to save their lives... but often to no avail...

 

All it takes is one catholic priest diddling little boys in the confessional, and all the effort that went into protecting them to make me know that the catholic church sucks. And thats only one small instance.

I stand by what I said. The catholic church is nothing but a lot of thugs and thiefs in lambs clothing.

 

native survivors of residential schools would say most definitely NO

 

FYI, before the Vatileaks papers, and the child molesting, I could have cared less about the Vatican. Now I think they are a criminal organization.

Good luck trying to convince people that regular everyday Catholics have anything to do with the Vatican, which is the problem!

 

But it has an amazing art collection!

 

I don't particularly think it is. There are many positive things the Church does in people's lives but I think they're vastly outweighed by the negatives. Over many centuries we've seen:

*Persecution of scientists and free thinkers of innumerable disciplines, in innumerable places. Also, the teaching of pseudo-science like creationism and young earth drivel; denial of science and reality, in other words.
*Vehement promulgation and inculcation of Antisemitism particularly in Europe. Pogroms against the Jews and only after 1965 the revocation of the charge of deicide (the death of Christ) against all Jews.
*Open alliance with fascism and fascist regimes across Europe, in the last century. In fact alliance might even be improper. Fascism was the movement of the Catholic right, almost by definition. This is their worst crime in history IMO.
*Rape and torture of children in Catholic run institutions all over the world. And refusing to report these cases to proper authorities, instead preferring to deal with it internally is also a disgusting indictment.
*Wars, wars and more wars. Do I really need to run through all the horrific conflicts initiated or prolonged by Catholicism? From The Crusades to the Rwandan Genocide, from the Reconquista to modern Ireland.
*Bigotry. It's rife and always has been. I've mentioned the Jews but equally maltreated have been non-believers and infidels, homosexuals, women, and many others. Inquisitions, heresy hunts, it goes on and on.
*Slavery. It is Biblically supported though so perhaps that's God's crime but Catholics and the Catholic Church certainly indulged in it. To their credit there was a counter-tradition amongst Catholics as well dating back to the 15th century.

I also think some of the most idiotic statements ever uttered by human beings have come from the Papacy and it's members. The stances on abortion and contraception are nonsensical. Saying things like aids is bad but condoms are worse. Or that the greatest threat to world peace is abortion. This is unconscionable fatuity. One could go on until the cows come home. So I do think the Church ought to be credited with many great achievements but there are even more pernicious influences in contrast.

 

The Catholic Church is a force for good. A strong force. Even in my area which isn't overly Catholic by a long shot---Catholic organizations do incredible work. They wouldn't be here without the Church.

 

Oh well that was nice of them to offer.

It was a Church-based initiative. Don't even try saying secularism is culpable for the Inquisition.

 

Organised religion has been the worst thing that has ever happened to humanity. The Catholic Church has committed many atrocities that has been covered up.

The Catholic Church has always been anti-condom and anti-birth control which has caused many deaths in Africa from AIDS, yet they still campaign abstinence>birth control, which has caused millions of deaths in Africa. They try to influence governments politics by using the fear of excommunication, (E.G the Abortion law in Uruguay). They've also used this fear on the common people.

They take money from the common people, then they waste the money on building over-sized, over-decorated churches,attempting to convert people and giving it to themselves. Then they give the leftovers to the poor to improve their public image.

 

that is the way you see things. But you have 2 realize that your eyes are jaundiced since you were raised thinking this and that about the RCC

i have been Catholic off/on all my life... well, i suppose i have always been catholic but not always practicing.. For a time in my life i was very ignorant... uncatechized. And i too saw things differently because of my... ignorance...

there is nothing seriously wrong with the hierarchy. There is only something wrong w/ certain members thereof who wont surrender to Christ

but that is the same as any other organization where humans are involved

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well, i can see you have a very bigoted, pre-set schema about the Church

so maybe i am wasting my time bothering to answer....

 

I'm sorry to say that kind of arrogance is part of the problem I'm talking about. Any criticism from outsiders, however valid it may be, can be and is dismissed out of hand. Opinion on whether the Catholic Church is good or bad is irrelevant unless you have faith in the Catholic Church. Do you not see the massive hole in that concept?

To a great extent yes, though a good hierarchy should be one that is designed to manage the inevitable failings of the individuals within it, something I'm not convinced the Church is especially good at.

I'm not saying the Catholic Church hierarchy is some kind of fundamentally evil organisation out the destroy the world though. The Church as an organisation is indeed no better (or worse) than any similar secular organisation. The problem is that it wants to be and is treated differently, as if there is something fundamental about it that raises it above the rest of us.

 

Look at the creation and growth of the Church, that is all that's needed... While there are some aspects that are bad and have been bad, its rather irrelevant in comparison to the good that has been created for humanity...

 

I have to admit, the convert or kill has been pretty successful for the two top religions in the world

 

I'm bigoted because I think Catholicism and Christianity are more culpable for the Inquisition than secularism is? What planet are you on?

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So the good that the Church does is relevant but the bad things it does are irrelevant? What a wonderful way of playing tennis without the net.