The Ethics of the Catholic Church
The ethics of the Catholic Church are well illustrated by the following:
· Crusades the Popes ordered the invasion of neighbouring countries and the murder of millions for not believing in a sky fairy they had never heard of.
· Inquisition the Catholic Church tortured millions for believing in a set of gods slightly different from the current dogma.
· Current Pope Benedict used to head the actual Church body that ran the Inquisition (since renamed Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), so is quite comfortable with that approach.
· Benedict reaffirms his
infallibility and demands total obedience: For Benedict, if your conscience tells you something that differs from his [Papal] teaching,
it is a false conscience, a sign not of personal integrity but of sin. And so he has silenced conscientious dissent within the Church,
and insisted on absolutism in matters like abortion, end-of-life decisions, priestly celibacy, the role of women, homosexuality, and
interfaith dialog. Time, p51, 9 October 2006.
· Kidnapping of children (Edgardo Mortara) as late as 1858.
· Sexual abuse most of the current Church administration abetted sexual abuse of children, by rotating rather than sacking the offending priests.
· Arrest of Galileo for daring to state the evidence about the solar system, when contrary to Church dogma.
· Burning of Geordano Bruno at the stake for suggesting god was more like a universal ethic than a little old man who throws down thunderbolts.
· Papal behaviour the historical record shows that most Popes have indulged in plenty of fornication, child sex, polygamy, murder. Read more. [link coming]
· Justice torture the innocent in order to let off the guilty*.
* As an example of Christian ethics, the core Christian paradigm, as reported by most authorities to the present day, is the 'atonement' the claim that God so loved the world that he arranged the torture and murder of an innocent third party (Jesus), under the pretence that punishing the innocent would enable him to let off the guilty.
Picture this: a judge says 'I find
you John Smith guilty of robbing the bank, so I will grab you Fred Jones, an innocent passer by, and torture you to death'. Barking
mad! Perhaps that is why the greatest Christian nation on earth the USA perpetrated their crimes in Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq, and
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba they cant tell love from torture.