Why Are Reforms so Necessary? ‘Cause They’re Staying Home

Church Current, Revelation 3 August 13, 2014

In a recent review of a Frontline program on the Catholic Church in crisis, I noted that Pope Francis I was making it his primary mission to evangelize Europe, to bring home those who have fallen away or have refused to participate in any formal religion. Europe has become largely apostate. Francis seeks to awaken and energize the Church with an influx of new membership, and those who have been disenfranchised for any reason.

In both the United States and Europe, the conservative stance on contraception for Church members has been a real deal-breaker. Women today want to be in charge of their reproductive choices, and with feminist movements in the United States and abroad, Church’s dogma concerning contraception has become largely irrelevant. The big threat to undermine church attendance in the United States has been the sexual abuse scandals, especially for Baby Boomers and under. The Church’s criminal actions of rapes, cover-up, denial, and un-repentance has offered the victims and their families no means of finding healing or forgiveness toward the church. To this day, the Catholic Church continues to spin the sexual abuse scandal to try to minimize its duplicity and evil actions toward the victims. As a result, the hypocrisy is so blatant, that the pews are no longer filled with families in large numbers as they were only a generation ago. This younger generation demands real reforms take place before they will take the Roman Catholic Church seriously in the United States. The “feel good” and “let’s all get along” message coming from the mega Evangelical Churches is more attractive to this age group in the United States, as their numbers will attest. However, they are no more dealing in the truth than is The Catholic Church. They have just put a more friendly face on it. God is not pleased with either brand of Christianity because they have made “God’s Word of none effect” by perverting it or ignoring it altogether. In Europe, the disenchantment with The Roman Catholic Church is even more complex. They have a longer list of grievances against the RC Church and perhaps more widespread scandals that continue to be exposed. First, the sexual abuse scandals are being exposed continually. Secondly, there are the Vatican Bank scandals that are only partially exposed. No one outside of the Vatican knows just how far-reaching the corruption really is. This is a real source of frustration to the Church Members, who would like some answers about this on-going problem of why mobsters and money launderers can move funds at will with the complicit approval of the Vatican. Third is the exposure of the Catholic Church’s stealing babies and selling them to wealthy families abroad as well as the abuse of the babies and mothers who had the misfortune to get pregnant outside of Church-approved marriage. In the recent film, Philomena, the story of a woman who worked in the Irish Laundries or the “Magdalene Laundries” owned and run by the Catholic Church in Ireland, reveals a wicked system of selling babies for profit and the exploitation of poor young women. They took in this young girl who found herself to be pregnant. The nuns at the laundry gave Philomena and other young women the prenatal care they could not afford, making them work off their debt in the laundry, both while pregnant and after. The children were held at the convent while the girls nursed the babies. Once the children were weaned the nuns sold the children to wealthy people, often Americans, with an imposed consent of the mothers. The young women were intimidated into signing documents they didn’t understand and would later find their baby was gone after a hard day’s work in the laundry.

There have also been accounts of the Catholic Church stealing babies from couples in the hospitals run by the church in both Italy and in Spain. 60 Minutes did an expose on that scandal a few years ago. If the Homes and orphanages had no means for the mothers to make money for the institution, they basically treated them as criminals and worse starving both the women and the babies, many to death. There were all manner of abuses committed on the inhabitants of these “Homes” and one recent scandal in Ireland revealed several corpses found when the place was being excavated to create a park. They were mostly juvenile skeletons known to be the babies of the unwed mothers that died of malnutrition or sickness, from neglect. Ireland appears to have one of the ugliest chapters of Catholic-run orphanages and homes. How will Francis explain away this grievous find and how can you compensate these victims that had the misfortune to be poor?

Fourth, in Germany, Austria, and Belgium the members of the Catholic Church in these countries are required to pay church taxes for the privilege of believing. Many in those countries are requesting to be “De-baptized”. This is done by requesting an official certificate, issued by the government, to be filed, so that they can get a “church tax” exemption. In other European countries that do not pay the tax, the practice has caught on as a means of formalizing their objection to the Catholic Church, thus making a formal resignation of their membership. (Knowing that the German Catholics are taxed for their beliefs makes their outrage at the so-called “Bling Priest” in Germany, who built a lavish multimillion-dollar residence for himself, more profound.) The trend toward “De-baptism” is really gaining momentum throughout Europe.

The populace in Europe is speaking very loudly to the Roman Catholic Church, that they need to clean up their act and change their ways if they are to continue to have a serious standing in the future. With the trends of “De-baptism” and a serious decline in new baptisms, the Church is getting desperate to stem the tide and evangelize Europe. In France, the Church is offering new activities to keep members interested; ski retreats, support networks, and specialized, more contemporary youth masses. What the new Pope needs to address to the masses comes from a quote of a Belgian researcher, Mr. Morelli; “It’s also a struggle about subsidies the population must pay for a church that doesn’t represent them.”

How will the Pope reverse the “De-baptism” trend and add value to Church members in Europe? How will he overcome the oppression and hypocrisy that has offended and discouraged the faithful in Europe? It will require something spectacular on his part, perhaps even the supernatural to reverse the current trend. In the United States, the challenge is for reforms to be made, welcoming women to serve in leadership roles and to invite and include homosexuals to be openly gay and active in today’s Church. That, coupled with a straightforward admission of the past abuses and an apology, and the floodgates could open for the young Catholic faithful to return or to become members for the first time. I believe we shall see these reforms very soon along with closer ties to the Evangelical groups, promoting unity with all creeds and beliefs.

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