The Ecclesiastical Manifesto

Since 313, Catholicism has been a mighty force when it’s come to religion, the most popular strain of the most popular religion. Of course, this didn’t just happen – to survive, Catholicism needs two main things:

- Bad conditions are not only a necessity in Catholicism, but in ALL religion. Nothing strengthens a religion more then poor living/social standards. When there is nothing in this life for a group in society to look forward to, religion’s promises of a better ‘afterlife’ are the ‘carrot dangling in front of the horse’ to these people. Its very evident in the breakout of terrorism; bad conditions in the Muslim countries have risen to points where religious extremism has broken out.
One HUGE part of this necessity is education; poor education leads to more religion, but we’ll get to that later…

- Another thing the church needs is the general consensus that the church has all the answers. All throughout the ages, the clergy have been seen as wise sages; knowing a multitude of answers and their divine knowledge can help us in all our problems. In literature, the priest is always seen as the person people go too when they need information or help; “SANCTUARY!!!”

This is the exact reason why the church is having trouble adjusting nowadays to western society. To be perfectly frank; there are no longer bad conditions in modern western society. We all live with enough food, have access to jobs and education, and have live a cultured lifestyle.

And that brings me to the subject of education. It’s interesting to see how the church has reacted to religion. Back in the olden days, children were educated poorly (if at all). This would have consisted of VERY basic maths and reading/writing but mostly RELIGION. The church controlled the children, and therefore had perfect control of them as adults. But with the emergence of science as an education to the populace in the 20th century, the church had nowhere to go. There are catholic teaching institutions, of course, but this does nothing to shake children of today to shake their belief of science over religion (which leads me to my next point…)

The church no longer has all the answers. Science has overtaken science as the belief of Western culture. Physics and chemistry have replaced philosophy and theology. The problem with that is that science (when you take things at face value) seems to cancel out the basic stories of Catholicism. This lost the belief in the clergy being the brings of truth.

They are no longer holier-then-thou perfect beings with divine knowledge. The media has taken take of that. Nothing says ‘distrust me’ more then child-sex allegations…enough said.


So what can the church do? Most obviously, get rid of their conservative views and get some reform action to the beat of something like this…

- Marriage for priests will get rid of any of excuse for child-sex allegations and definitely set the church back on the road to being perfectly trusted again (as well as being HUMANE to the priests).

- Women priests will not only keep the filthy feminists happy ;) but also be a perfect symbol for change in the church. Such a massive step will put faith back in the church's ability to change

- The most important one for me is view of Jesus. I cant stress enough how important it is for the image to CHANGE. Luckily, this is one that the church is acting upon at least a little…

The image of Christ has always been one of a holy being, seated at the right-hand of the Father. The epitome of goodness, the SON OF GOD! What the church NEEDS to be pushing is the idea of the AVERAGE MAN that is also hinted at in the bible. Jesus was just another guy; working-class even! I mean; what better way to catch the imagination of the people! It’s romantic! A boy from the rough part of town, working as a tradie, growing up to become loved by all (and most importantly, getting his message out to all). This is why the image of Christ and Mary Magdalene as a couple really gets people! Its what a regular guy would do! He’d go her! This IS starting to happen though, what with the ‘Passion of the Christ’ and I heard a reading today involving Mary as a mother around the kitchen with an apron on (bringing the stories back home to the 21st century)

If the church doesn't adapt, it will die. One of two things will happen from here: either the new generation of priests will understand the need for change and point the church in the right direction, or we will have another round of head-shaking conservatives that will slowly drown the church (and religious belief in society altogether)

Thank you and goodnight *passes out*