The rebirth of Catholicism today

Pope Benedict

What Can the Catholic Church Do to Repair Its Image?

In its universal definition, the Catholic Church, in time, has become not just one of the main Christian line religions, but also one of the most vulnerable denominations. The Great Schism of 1054 was the very first scandal that led to many more.

As we look back in history, with a simple view of what happened in the theological disputes of that time, the Catholic Church went from being an universal idea to a separate ecclesiastical order , starting from the idea of the addition of “filioque” to the initial Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (the idea of adding “and from the Son”, referring to the Person of Jesus as equal to the Person of the Father). Then from this point the Catholic Church developed the idea of primacy, and from there the whole perspective of the church was changed.

This is just a simple and short definition of the history of how the Catholic Church came into the plan of history. In my own opinion I believe that past mistakes are most of the time the effects of future causes. When we have a cause we must have an effect; in our approach the actual causes of the past mistakes within the universal church had led to what we call today the actual affectation of the movement. In order to see a change in the image of the present day Catholic Church, we must first understand the past mistakes that were done.

First of all, the Catholic Church wanted its own way of ordering things inside the ecclesiastical affairs of the denomination. Therefore there needs to be taken a step of reunification with the other Christian denominations, but not in an ecumenical manner, but in a Christ-like way. The initial unity of the church must be established and the religious ceremonies must no longer be some kind of a ritual; rather it has to be the fellowship of the believers, as Christ the Lord intended for His Church.

Secondly, derived from the same issue is also the fact that separatism had led the Catholic Church to form its own belief that she is the only representative of Christ on earth, and she alone can give or restrain access to heaven for the parishioners. It is so true what the Holy Scriptures affirm, that Christ is the Head of the Church, and we all are parts of this Body, His Church. This logically means that we have the same Father in heaven that we pray and worship to, and we all are His sons and daughters, if we have a relationship with Him. If we are His sons and daughters and He is our Father in heaven, it means that we are brothers and sisters and we ought not to see ourselves higher than others - see 1 Corinthians 4:6-13 (English Standard Version) . The Catholic Church needs to understand that we are all the same and we should see each other as God sees us.


Thirdly, this chain reaction of past mistakes had created the idea of isolation inside the Catholic Church, in the sense that ordinances, hierarchical positions and lay people from the church had to have a separate standard of living. The images we see these days about the scandals inside the Catholic Church are due to the fact that in the modern era of today, the church is trying to redefine the past. Different Papal decisions led to some shifting inside the creed and organization of the church. Now you can find that Catholics have same practice like other main line denominations in Christianity – and all this for the idea of inside acceptance. The current Pope is working hard to create a humanistic unity and acceptance of all religions of the world, hoping he would bring in the restoration of the first century church, peace and prosperity, when in fact he is creating the religion of ecumenism – accepting even different sexual or non-sexual opinions inside of the church for the sake of human rights laws and advocates. The Catholic Church needs to stop in this drama-like turning point; she needs to stop using the masks of false unification and start breaking the ground of coming to the basics of Christian – I didn’t say ecumenical – life: faith, hope and love, the three main ingredients of Christian living – see 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 (English Standard Version) .

Fourthly, the Catholic Church needs not only to return to the basics of Christian life but also to realize that the relationship with the Trinity is also important. It is easy for us to say that we love God – whom we don’t see with our physical eyes – and in fact to hate our neighbors – whom we clearly see with our own eyes. Our horizontal relationship with others must reflect our vertical relationship with our Father in heaven; the other way is available as well. The Catholic Church has reached the point that she had been too busy in making her own image in front of the people, and not the image of God – what He really intended for every one of us. The sad fact is that the image she created is now hard to break because it is imprinted in the lives and memories of so many. It takes courage to form a good image as well as to break an image. If the Catholic Church was used to forming her own images about herself in front of the media, the people and the other religions, it is time now to make images that reflect the divine aspects and virtues of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

Fifthly, the Catholic Church must dress off the cloak of superiority, dominance, supremacy, primacy and whatever might be added here about her roles from history. The Catholic Church needs to bend down and look at the hurts of the people – which I think she is doing right now – but not with an attitude of historical legacy; she needs to be more sensitive to those that need help, and be just with those that need to be corrected and disciplined, according to the Holy Scriptures. Compromise will never lead a nation to success. In the same way compromise inside the Catholic Church will not bring any kind of renewal within this religious movement. When she becomes a people-oriented and not an objective-oriented church, then we might see a shift in the present day Catholicism.

Catholic Church will go through the pain of rebirth when she will realize the above mentioned steps as guiding lines for the leadership, organization, ecclesiastical order and creed of the denomination. Anyone who has a heart and understands that a child needs the support of those around him will also realize the fact that the rebirth of the Catholic Church must be seen as a supportive element of the Christianity and not another reason to ridicule the images of the past mistakes. When we presume that nothing bad happen in the past, and go on with our old mistakes, we surely have become blinded or ignorant of our present condition; when we look into the mirror and see what we really are, and where we have got ourselves into, then we will realize that change for the sake of change will be of no effect.

Change for the sake of Christ, though, will be a change that will effect present and future generations. Past mistakes are hard to forget, but not hard to forgive.

Note: This in an article I wrote and was originally published by Associated Content, a service later taken by Yahoo Voices, closed in the fall of 2014.