Catholic Church really that bad?

Question

It seems that a lot of people are against the Catholic Church. They blame it for the Inquizitions, additude against women, colonization, slavery, etc. I'm sure you've all heard the same things I have. Is the Church really responsible for all that? And haven't they done enough good to balance things out, even just a little?

I'm talking about promotions of the arts and education, the hospitals and missions they have established, and are establishing in third world countries, throughout the world, and other things.

Any thoughts are welcome.

I love the answers I've gotten, thank you every one. You've put a lot of thought into them, and they've given me a lot to think about. Keep it coming, I'm sure you've got more to say.

Answer 1

I Love the Catholic Church.
If I wasn't a Catholic I would become one.

When someone doesn't like the Catholic Church it is usually because of something they think is true about the Catholic Church but it is not what we believe.

Sometimes people get their information from anti-Catholic Religions. They can't tell you what we believe.

Go to a Catholic Church and Join the RCIA.
You Can learn what the Catholic Church teaches and Believes.
Then if you like you can either become a Catholic or Stay with whatever you are presently doing.

If you want to know what a Catholic Believes you have to ask a true Catholic. The attached web pages will teach you what we really believe, rather than someone who was not properly educated in the faith and left it. Or got caught up in Sin and didn't want to change but wanted the church to change to say that they were not sinning.

If you want to know what a Catholic Believes, you have to ask a faithful Catholic.

God Bless You, ;-)

The first step to believing is questioning.

Answer 2

Before any answer if proposed to this question, it must be remembered that all modern day religions started out as cults, more or less. Catholicism is not it's own religion however, it is a sect of a religion (Christianity) which did start out as a cult.

No religion can be labeled as bad, towards anything. Everything in the world has good and bad attributes, it is up to the society to determine what they believe to be good and bad.

It is true that the Catholic Church led the inquisitions, but there were the Romans before them who led a very similar march across most of Europe, Northern Africa, and into Asia.

The additude against women did not begin in the Catholic Church. The additudes towards women is dependant upon the culture and the society. There are some societies who believe the women does not need a full education. Others treat the woman with reverence and respect. I am not Catholic, so I cannot be positive, but many Christians give respect to the woman body for it was the woman that produced and loved Jesus.

The Catholic Church has manifested in many horrible deeds, but they were not necessarily the producers of such acts, just the continuers. So ultimate question is not if the Catholic Church is bad for starting such things or is the Catholic Church wrong in continuing such acts and thusfore in the wrong.

There is no bad religion. Many of this anger against the Catholic Church has come foreward due to The Davinci Code. The book by Dan Brown is a fiction, many it is not real. It was not written with the intentions of people to believe it. It is a great story, but that is all it is, a story.

The Jewish
The Hindus
The Muslim
The Christians
The Buddhists
The Wiccans
and every other religion that makes up the global society believes in their teachings and their history. It does not make them wrong or bad. The misinterpretations of the rest who are not within this group are what create these feelings, as is so for every other group, religious or not, in this world.

Answer 3

I don't believe the Catholic church to be that bad at all, I consider humanity to be that bad. It was never the mission, the original goal, or the inherent ideals of the catholic church that caused all of those things, it was the men in leadership there.

Humans are capable of terrible things, and no one is perfect. People simply hold the church to a higher standard because they see the church as an establishment of judgement, and as such expect perfection.

The idea between the good and the bad balancing out is somewhat asinine... much as the idea of holding this organization responsible, and condemning it because of atrocities committed and attitudes held hundreds, sometimes thousands of years ago.

Look at the Catholic church NOW, judge them if you must off of what they have done in the RECENT past, or even the present. Look at at the good the CAN do, not at the evil they HAVE done in a past so far gone that no one in living memory knows it.

The Catholic Church of today is a very different entity, like all things it has changed over time in its behavior, even though the ideals have stayed the same.

If you find yourself concerned with the incredible difference between the philosophies and the behavior, remember that hypocricy is a human trait, not a divine one, and that hypocricy is found JUST AS MUCH everywhere else as it is in ANY church or other religion.

Tiger Striped Dog MD

Answer 4

Will lets see the catholic church here in Canada is being sued by First Nations Groups because during a good part of the last century first nation children or as people use to call them Indians were taken from their homes placed in boarding schools where many were beaten and sexually abused by the nuns and priest. Many of physical abuse was done to punish the children for speaking in their native language. The whole idea behind these schools was to have these kids think like a "white man."http://www.usask.ca/nativelaw/rsbib.html
http://www.shannonthunderbird.com/residential_schools.htm
http://www.anglican.ca/Residental-Schools/resources/miller.htm
Let's see the Catholic Church for many years has hated the Jewish People. The head of the Catholic Church during the Second World War stood idly by as Hitler and his Friends killed six million Jewish people and that's just the icing on the cake. http://www.religioustolerance.org/vat_hol12.htm, http://www.religioustolerance.org/vat_hol1.htm There is a Book you can get too on this subject called The Catholic Church and the Holocaust 1930-1965 by Micheal Payer

But yes if you wish the to think of the good that the Catholic Church has done will they have started up hospitals the Grey Nuns started two hospitals in an area of Saskatchewan called Saskatoon and Regina. Yes they might have done some good in bring medical aid to the world so people could be healthy. I found a web site for you that might help you find out more about Catholic Missions http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10375a.htm I hope this can be of any help to you. And here is something about the Grey nuns a web site about them http://www.answers.com/topic/grey-nuns
But the bad has out weigh the good the Catholic Church has tried to do in this world.

Answer 5

I love Deena's answer. Question the Church and don't just accept what you hear from the media. The Church is not perfect, but:

1. The Inquisitions are overblown. They existed, and were a product of misguided zeal. But the numbers are much smaller than Church critics contend, and confined to a relatively small area in Europe. Catholics are sinners like everyone else.

2. The Church is not anti-woman. It's greatest saint is a female--Mary.

3. The Church was actually an impetus for slavery's demise.

Read up and you will see that even the things the Church is criticized for are not fully true.

Answer 6

I was brought up Catholic and still am. But everything you mentioned is true. The Catholic religion did promote many things that are wrong. It is easy to see things in hindsight, but some of these things are so horrible, someone should have had the forsight to know they would have a bunch of negative connotations. You talk about the missions, and I understand that no one would be a Catholic if they did not spread the word. On the other hand how many people were killed because they refused to conform to the Catholic religion.

So I tend to agree that Catholosism has done some pretty impressive positive things, but they also have done some things that will never be forgiven on this earth.

Answer 7

The Catholic church's biggest problem is that they have refused to change with the times. I understand that much of what makes their religion special is that it hasn't changed in thousands of years however there are certain aspects where they must change in order to still have a place in modern society. For instance, I read an article addressing the pedophile issue. The church attracts ped.s more than any other profession because they have direct access to unsupervised children, they are in very powerful positions, and Catholicism itself promotes guilt and therefore creates a situation where the victim remains silent. There are also idiots out there that think priests are gay because their victims are always boys-Hello! Alter boys have in the past always been boys, that's who they have access to! If the church were to allow it's priests to be married they would attract a different kind of people-with less of a concentration of pedophiles. (I think I am spelling it wrong) Anyway, and just like any other large institution the church itself is only as good as it's people. You are right that the church is a powerful organization that has done more good than harm overall but tell that to a child who was molested-I imagine they would beg to differ.

Answer 8

I'm Catholic and I plan to stay Catholic (I'm in my 30's). I've made my peace with the institution. I've learned the church is not immune from the workings of the devil. But I feel there is hope things will change for the better.

The problem is that when institutions grow large, corruption happens. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The church did not grow to such a massive, world wide scale without dirt happening. I just returned from a trip to the Vatican, complete with Papal audience and all. The place is massive. It took alot of cash to build that place; we all know some of that cash came from Illicit means. But, then for an institution to be so successful for so long also points to it's positive aspects. Something is working well.

The problem is that the institution is so large that it's can't change fast enough. It was/is a haven for crimminals because those rotten apples were fully aware when they joined the priesthood of the church's ability to provide a haven from the law since it is a world wide entitity. Unfortunately, that's the appeal of the priesthood for some, that you will receive protection from prosecution, if you're high enough in the food chain.

Sure, a measly few priests have been arrested and some beaten to death in jail, but I feel many more rotten apples need to be tossed out before any significant change can happen. (i.e. allowing priests to marrry and adding women priests).

That HBO documentary about priests showed one guy who explained how normally the men who join the seminary are barely out of their teens, who never had experiences with women. Some others are confused about their sexuality and run to the priesthood to try and change themselves to please God. Either way these are the types of men who become priests and who eventually run the church. You can't expect much progress on women's issues with men who are trained to be emotionally and sexually stunted. As a result, the idea of having women hold significant roles in the church is terrifying to these types of men.

We have a long way to go

Answer 9

Blame it on the Catholics, Catholics have caused untold death and misery down the centuries and continues to do so.

The Catholic Church has the blood of millions of Africans on their hands because of the Church's ban on condoms in a continent ravaged by Aids. Most third world countries, in Latin America, Africa and Asia have burgeoning populations leading to poverty, disease and hunger.

The Catholics instigated the massacre of Protestant heretics, known as the St. Bartholomew Day's massacre in 1572, 100,000 perished.

The Spanish Inquisition rooted out non-believers. Then there's the witch hunts of midieval times:

Those deemed 'witches' by the Church included all female scholars, priestesses, gypsies, mystics, nature lovers, herb gatherers, and any women 'suspiciously attuned to the natural world.' Midwives were also killed for their heretical practice of using medical knowledge to ease the pain of childbirth -- a suffering, the Church claimed, that was God's rightful punishment for Eve's partaking of the apple of Knowledge, thus giving birth to the idea of Original Sin. During 300 years of witch hunts, the Church burned at the stake an astounding five million women", the figure is probably more like 100,000.

My take on the subject, is the Catholic Church is inherently good, its the misguided medieval Popes, superstitious fundamentalists and distorted worldview in general, that caused all this death and destruction.

Answer 10

The Catholic Church has twisted the Christian belief system to its own end. From the earliest inception of the church as an institution, it has edited biblical teachings and doctrine to create power for itself and to establish itself as the one true religion. While the original intent of the church was simply to bring people to the "true" religion, the later Catholic Church sought to establish itself as the one power on Earth through misleading the people. Now they have become a seat of bigotry and elitism. I'm not saying that all catholics are this way but the church has done its best to publicize itself as such.