Evil In the Church

"The Church is an organization full of evil and corruption. For one example, just look at all the priests who abuse children. But look at its long history of evil; the Crusades, the Inquisition, Galileo... the list goes on!"

The list certainly does go on! This Church was full of evil even when Jesus was its visible head; 1/12 of the Bishops (the "1" referring to Judas, one of the Apostles) was downright evil.

That the Church has survived and thrived these 2,000 years in spite of such evil forces seeking to tear her apart is proof of her Divine protection and guidance. There have been murderous Popes; God did not permit them to teach heresy and thereby lead their flock astray. There have been falsehoods believed by the majority of clergy; God did not permit these lies to become part of the Magisterium (the teaching authority of the Church). There have been large groups of evil Catholics who sought to overtake the Church; God prevented their victory. Without what we claim as true actually being so (that God sent His Holy Spirit to ensure that, as Jesus said, "the gates of hell would not prevail against [The Church]"), this Church never would have survived.

Nevertheless, be assured that the mainstream media, including modern textbooks and the like, are extraordinarily biased against the Catholicism of today and of yesterday. In this media you will not find (without here going into an in-depth historical discussion) that the Crusades were a response to Muslim aggression and are perhaps why the entire continent of Europe is not now governed by Sharia law; that the 500 year Inquisition's average 12 executions per year were done by the state; that Galileo was not reprimanded for heliocentrism; and more recently, that sexual abuse by priests is really a problem with homosexuality (not pedophilia), with most common offenses being directed against teenage boys and even at that only by a miniscule percentage of the clergy (there are far more school teachers committing these heinous crimes than Priests.) If we are to be concerned with institutional evil let us condemn the atheistic regimes of the 20th century that carried out the murder of 100 million people through concentration camps, gulags, engineered starvation, and mass executions.

But here you will not find false optimism. As the world is now in crisis, so is the Church. The amount of evil that has infested much of the clergy is nothing but sickening. But even that evil is eclipsed by the mass rejection of the authoritative truth she preaches by those who claim to be Catholics. Do not look at these souls, even if they are in the majority, and say "see; Catholicism is no longer what the old man in Rome says it is. Catholics now freely use contraception, have sex before marriage, divorce, and reject strange teachings like Jesus' real presence in the Eucharist and the need for Confession to a Priest." Catholicism is clear; it is laid out in the Bible and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

No matter how damaged her hull or how tattered her sails; the Catholic Church remains the new ark; the safe refuge from the deluge of sin that is now flooding the whole world. Her ministers, Catholic Priests, may be imperfect; but they bring to us He who is Perfection; Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and His Blood shed upon us in the Sacrament of Confession. She, Holy Mother Church, will bring you home soundly to God. If you would not permit the sight of tattered clothing on your own mother's back to cause you to reject her, then also do not permit the evil you see in the Catholic Church to leave her maternal love for you. She alone is the Bride of Christ as well as His body. He is the one head, and she is the one body- outside of which there is no eternal life - which if we separate ourselves from, we whither and die.