Entry 1226, on 2010-09-22 at 20:04:53 (Rating 4, News)
How bad can it get for the Catholic Church? I mean really, after the worldwide condemnation of its handling of the child abuse cases, after the criticism of its various social agendas, after the protests against the Pope's visits to Britain, now we have the Vatican Bank being investigated over money-laundering.
Instead of engaging in primitive superstitious rituals like beatifying alleged saints and engaging in propaganda campaigns involving Catholic school children supporters why doesn't the Pope try to do something useful? Like sorting out the numerous endemic problems plaguing the church and robbing it of more of its already negligible credibility every day. Or maybe do something even more useful: dis-establish the church, dedicate its staff to charitable work and disperse its assets to the poor.
That's what Jesus would do (I love that phrase). And it's odd the way people who ostensibly support Jesus' teachings are the last to really act in a way he would approve of. (Naturally I'm assuming here that Jesus existed at all and that the description in the Bible bears at least a superficial resemblance to reality).
Do the Catholics really think Jesus would approve of a huge, global bureaucracy with many arbitrary and counter-productive rules and headed by a person who claims to be the only representative of God on Earth? Do they believe that? Really?
And what about the fundamentalists? Do they really think Jesus would really approve of their hateful attacks on groups such as gays; of their blind stupidity in rejecting the obvious truth, such as evolution; and their intolerant dismissal of every form of faith apart from their own? Does that really sound like the forgiving, understanding character Jesus is often portrayed as? Does it?
I think that if Jesus existed and he returned to Earth he would feel most at home with the free thinkers and the people who are genuinely interested in understanding the universe and in establishing the best moral principles for humanity at this time. I think he would appreciate the (so called) radicals like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. And I think he would enjoy some of my little rants against the people who misrepresent what he really stands for.
Yes, good old JC and me would be good buddies. What would the religious bureaucracy and the lunatic fringe think of that?
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