Editorial #50: Vatican’s Betrayers

Autism Politico notices the Vatican is having trouble again.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – One of Pope Benedict’s ceremonial ushers and a member of an elite choir in St Peter’s Basilica have been implicated in a gay prostitution ring, in the latest sexual scandal to taint the Vatican.

People might say that the usher has betrayed the Pope, the Vatican, and the Catholic Church. True. The usher has indeed betrayed the Pope, the Vatican, and the Catholic Church.

All sorts of people have betrayed the church. Priests and nuns who have been convicted of any kind of crime especially.

Autism Politico is bemused, however, at the number of people who are straying from the Catholic Church, and it should be noted that not all of Autism Politico’s editors are Catholic.  

If the Catholic Church were corrupt, that would be one thing, but the Church is NOT corrupt.

That there is evil in the Church is a given. Evil infects people, and there are people in the Church, therefore there is evil in the Church.

But there is evil in any religious organization.

The larger problem as Autism Politico sees it is congregants who are dissatisfied with Church policy and leave the Church in order to find a new one that is more in keeping with their personal beliefs.

So often we hear people say “My God wouldn’t send people to hell for my sins. I have a loving God.”

The fact is, if you are Christian, the Bible is the word of God. If you are Catholic, there are rules you must adhere to as a Catholic. If you’d like to believe that YOU are right and the Church and God are wrong, you are NOT free to believe that as a Catholic. You can leave, but that is rather big-headed. YOU may change. Church policy may even change. But the Bible does not change. At least the truest translations don’t change.

The point of this editorial is, if you fashion for yourself your own religion and stray from your church for that reason, you are in effect committing idolatry.

In this particular case, that there was one corrupt usher in a church that has many ushers ought not to be used as “the last straw” or any other excuse to abandon the God you know for a God you have created for yourself out of make-believe. Nor should you fear the Catholic Church because of one evil person in it.

Replies to this editorial are welcome.