The Roman Church

[poliphilo]

There was a time when I wanted to be a Roman Catholic. I was reading G.K Chesterton and he had me backed into a corner with the bludgeoning force of his wordplay . Like Chesterton I had a craving for authority in my life. It's one of the deepest of human needs, I think- the need to belong to a pack and the need of the pack to have a leader. Thankfully it can be outgrown.

I love the art of the Middle Ages- which is, of course, overwhelmingly and inescapably Catholic. Catholicism was the air they breathed back then.

Catholic art went wrong at the Reformation. It ceased to be a universal language and became parochial. It was no longer entirely sure of itself and became hectoring on the one hand and sentimental on the other. The first artist to display these tendencies is Michelangelo. After him, the deluge. There is no Catholic art worth a damn after the 17th century.

I suppose I should say something about Catholic teaching. Insofar as that teaching is specifically Catholic as opposed to broadly Christian it is obviously piffle. Totalitarian piffle, at that.

The modern church reposes on the glory of its past. We cut it some slack because it built Rouen and Chartres and once employed Michelangelo. But that's the only thing that differentiates it from outfits like Scientology or The Unification Church. And if one of those were to be hit by something on the scale of the Irish paedophile scandal we'd have no hesitation in calling it an "evil cult".

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I left the Catholic Church at the age of 13, in 1954, when that "just was NOT done!" There followed some years of fighting for my own religious freedom - until I came of age to leave home.
I could not agree more with your statement that "we'd have no hesitation in calling it an 'evil cult'". Even to a child of ten or twelve (me) the Mariolotry, the dogma, the worship-in-effect of all clergy from the lowly nun up to and including "His Holiness" raised a lot of questions. Some of these questions I asked in my nun-driven school, only to be severely disciplined, then marched off to Confession so that I would not go to Hell for even asking.
The glorious music, the sculptures, the magnificent cathedrals are all very much appreciated by this former member of the "cult". I even have great admiration for some of their canonized saints.
I do not hate the Catholic Church, but I found that I could not comfortably wear Catholic "shoes" -- they pinch in all the wrong places.

sorry!

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

That was me. I forgot to log in...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't hate the Catholic church either. It's too complex an organisation for one to have simple, unmodulated feelings about it.

But the abuse of children by priests and nuns and- equally disgusting- the cover-up of that abuse to protect the Church has been a horrendous crime.

[algabal.livejournal.com]

I judge them by Christ's standards, the ones which they claim to be the sole representatives of on earth. And by those standards they are absolutely evil.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's hard to escape that conclusion.

As Stephen Fry said on TV the other day, if there's one person who'd be totally ill-at-ease in the Roman church it's the Galilean carpenter. Dostoevsky- in The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor- said much the same thing.