Do we need an institution? (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Thursday, July 05, 2012, 23:13 (322 days ago) @ judith

Thanks, Peter, Enda and Judith — and also to Andrew Hamilton for his reflection which, as usual for Andrew, names what needs to be named and in a gentle but forceful enough way.

In the final analysis I honestly think all our words are like pissing into the wind. The reality is that we're confronting forces in the human psyche here that it is literally impossible to communicate with. Just go read the sort of contributions our friend "Trent" makes on Eureka Street and in places like True Catholic. If Jesus himself put in a personal appearance he'd be unable to convince "Trent" of any alternative viewpoints. While the number of "Trents" in the world is not huge, they do exert enormous control over this institution today without perhaps fully appreciating it themselves. As I keep writing, five percent of a billion baptized Catholics is still a very big number. They do hold this huge institution to a ransom today to the point that it is being driven into societal irrelevance. Trying to communicate with these people though must be a bit like what it was for the people on Easter Island to stop what they were doing or they would destroy their civilisation.

The problems the institution faces today are rooted right down in the emotions and insecurities of a small sector of the population. No logic, no rational discussion is capable of confronting it. It literally is to be likened to attempting to communicate with a terrorist with 4 kilos of plastic explosive strapped to their waist and about to blow up a market square of innocent civilians — absolutely convinced they are doing "God's work" and their mission is "holy".

I honestly think the institutional leadership need to take a long, hard look at what they think the objective in "being Catholic" is. Is it some game of dress-ups, some tribal activity running around trying to prove that our religious "club" is the best, is some game of "sucking up to God" in the hope that he will be nice to us and reward us in the ways we were rewarded by the kindergarten Ma'am when we were "good children"? Is it some game of social conformity, trying build this civilisation of unthinking clones? Or is it some quest for ultimate truth and meaning in each of our lives — endeavouring to make intelligent choices and decisions in our lives driven not by what our egos and insecurities are constantly telling us but driven by this Mystery we believers lable variously as "Almighty God", the "Holy Spirit", of "the Voice of God deep within our own consciences"? I think the hierarchs have become very confused at what they're trying to "sell" or get people to believe. In consequence the vast majority of thinking people have simply given up listening to them anymore.

The question that intrigues me is this: do we actually need an institution?

My sense is that this institution is in a state of irreversible collapse. With the zealots and "bovver boys" who now control it, the prospects of reform or some "new spring of re-growth" are effectively zilch. Benedict is actually correct: the future is a "smaller, purer Church" ... and it will be basically irrelevant to society at large.

I think a question still remains: do we, or does society, actually need some religious institution or structure? My gut sense is "yes". But what the people expect of it, and the self-image it has of itself in its response back to humanity, will be critical factors should some institutional structure arise from the ashes of this present destruction.

There are arguments worth listening to that the religion that evolves in the future might be "institutionless" or without any formal structure/de-institutionalised. Other agencies in society are taking over many of the functions previously undertaken by religious institutions. What are the thoughts of any of you as to what religion might look like in the future?

Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]