"What is the importance of being Roman Catholic? What is the point of it all?" (Main Forum)

by James, Australia, Wednesday, June 04, 2008, 09:39 (1813 days ago) @ Letter to the Editor

Personally, I don't think there is any point. Every time I read any news about the Church (the latest about the hostility to Eastern rite married priests), the more I realise that this institution is no different than any other on earth with its pettiness, bureacracy, and with its equal share of very good and highly motivated people and on the other hand those who let the reptilian brain come to the top a bit too often. But you can point to any group of people, even unorganized atheists to find the same mixture. So where does this leave divine inspiration, let alone vicars of the son of God etc?

Human beings are the only animals on earth (apart from chimpanzees, it has recently been found) that kill mercilessly members of their own species. Nor do they kill each other when fighting over the same things like we fight for, such as territory or females. Other animals have developed highly sophisticated ways of dissolving aggression, such as when wolves and dogs give up a fight by lying on their back. The stronger one doesn't bite the loser's entrails out, whereas we run them through with whatever weapon is at hand. In this sense, they are really superior to us. Recently a new tribe was found in the Brazilian amazon, and when they saw the helicopter, they got their bows and arrows out to try and shoot it down. They were no different to the rest of us. We always shoot to kill. Civilization is the art of keeping this fiery beast in check. The history of the Church has shown that it is no better than any other institution in doing that, and has been just as bad as all of the worst ones. And now in Africa, we are seeing the consequences of Humanae Vitae with its denunciation of the use of condoms and the births of thousands of children with HIV, offering them nothing more than a miserable life. A future Pope will apologise for Humanae Vitae, just has the more recent one apologised for Galileo, Giordano Bruno, the silence during the Holocaust and all the other myriad and properly made apologies of recent decades.

Well one might ask: what is the point?