Criticising the Catholic Church

'You apparently think the Catholic Church can do no wrong.' Well, I think the Church will be continually 'led into all truth' as Jesus promised, but no, I'm not about to put a fresh coat of white-wash on everyone and everything that has ever been or been done within Christ's Church (and using Christ's name). I could spend the rest of my life offering honest and heavy criticism of the Church past and Church present, and most of us probably will spend our lives in such a way (in one way or another). There is scandal there that would actually make Her accusers blush - carousing priests, Jew-killings, wars over who is Pope, etc. etc. etc. Personally, I'm always quick to remember, however, that I'm one of these idiots that God has had to answer for; yes, guilty as charged: the Church seems to be full of us sinners.

Truthfully, there is much more to critique in Catholicism, since she aimed/aims for complex/harmonic Truth, the Truth that her Founder taught and actually was. Perhaps this is why there are so many Protestants - a dime a dozen - who are anxious to give the world two earfuls of the 'whore of Babylon' spiels and all that crap; they must have run out of things to critique in Protestantism and thus needed to start finding elsewhere dragons to slay.

I say this all in good humour and good fun, but being immersed in a Protestant culture, the lazy and propagandist way in which the Church is theologically criticised truly grates my nerves. I'll be the first to criticise the Church when she doesn't proprely educate her children in matter of Faith (and though I'm new to the scene and speak with no authority, I've been told that this is the current case in American catechism). Then again, in this our 'information age' Catholic teachings are not hidden in a closet somewhere, and it never fails that core Catholic beliefs are ignored, butchered, or translated into something completely different by Protestant critics. This is simply unacceptable; in that context - that of the open-mouthed, closed-ear Protestant - I'm hardly interested in playing along. There is certainly room to criticise, but let's make sure (on the broader spectrum) that we're criticising the same Institution - the one that exists, and not the one that suits Protestant protest.

-Rick