Abortion Pardon During Jubilee Year

[catswiththum]

Having been raised Roman Catholic, I appreciate the architecture of the older cathedrals and had a great deal of fun screwing up the mass as an altar boy.

The church is still very popular and I see nothing wrong with people who so choose gathering with the like minded to explore their spirituality and find comfort.

I don't much hold with the notion of having to go through a self appointed representative of the almighty to cleanse the conscience but have no problem with those who do.

Most of the Catholic ritual and trappings are holdovers from that dreary era between the fall of the Roman empire and the enlightenment, when the church was the de facto government in a large swath of Europe.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by catswiththum

Having been raised Roman Catholic, I appreciate the architecture of the older cathedrals and had a great deal of fun screwing up the mass as an altar boy.

The church is still very popular and I see nothing wrong with people who so choose gathering with the like minded to explore their spirituality and find comfort.

I don't much hold with the notion of having to go through a self appointed representative of the almighty to cleanse the conscience but have no problem with those who do.

Most of the Catholic ritual and trappings are holdovers from that dreary era between the fall of the Roman empire and the enlightenment, when the church was the de facto government in a large swath of Europe.

I don't suppose it makes a huge amount of difference but the Pope, as I'm sure you know, is elected by the College of Cardinals. That's not exactly a mandate from the faithful but neither is it a case of a self-appointed leader ruling the Church.

And, while the hierarchical structure of the Church can trace much of its origins back to the Dark Ages, it also owes much to the wake-up call of the Reformation. As for ritual, that's been updated constantly, most notable with the death of the Latin mass.

Finally, it's not really accurate to say that the Church was a de facto government in Europe. From Constantine onward, governance in Europe was a "joint venture" between kings and the Church. Each depended upon the other for legitimacy. The kings ruled by "divine right" via Rome's imprimatur and, in turn, they offered the Church protection within their realms.

This started developing some pretty big cracks during the Reformation and during major upheavals like the Thirty Years War. Add to that the Enlightenment and the secularization of intellectual thought and we now live in a world where the Church has very little influence in governmental affairs.