Church venting

This summer i read a biography of Galileo. The last chapter spoke of how the church "rehabilitated" him in 1992. The author, Michael Sharratt, notes correctly that, after the way it had treated Galileo and the ignorance it had displayed, the one that needed to be rehabilitated was the church. But, since there is no worldly authority that can rehabilitate it, the church must take the task into its own hands. Indeed, that is precisely what that organization has been attempting to do for the last 40 years, since the Vatican II Council. It wants to revamp itself, to show that it's not an obscurantist organization. Hence, there are no more masses in Latin for the masses, other instruments besides the organ are being allowed in churches, and… well, i’m sure things must have changed a lot more in the 20 years since i stopped going.

Anyway. What John Paul II said at the time of Galileo's rehab is that scientific knowledge and the faith's revelatory knowledge both lead to the truth (yes, those articles bother me, too). They are not opposed, he says, and they have points of contact. In conclusion, since truth is one, science and faith cannot contradict each other.

Really? Where does that leave the multiplicity of religious faiths we have lived with throughout history? Is JP committing the gaffe of saying that the catholic faith is supreme to all others? And what about the jumping stones the scientific method needs to rest on before asking new questions? Questions that lead to new jumping stones that destabilize or invalidate those others from which the questions themselves emerged... Science must contradict itself all the time, if it wants to continue to be science! (when it stops doing so, it will be dogma, too)

What our dear patriarch showed with his words was how little he knows about the topic, or how simple he thinks we, his herd, are. Or how simple we, his herd, are indeed.

So, relating back to what i said in the first paragraph, i do think the church IS obscurantist, by its very nature.

To give an example of what obscurantism means, let's take the case of the church's attitude towards sex, sexuality and contraceptives. How many years will have to pass for the holy fathers (no holy mother, mind you -- except Mary, but she's dead -- i know, only physically, but there is no incorporeal pope, either) to recognize the suffering caused by their policies in this respect? Millions of lives lived in material and mental misery, centuries of traumas, jealousies, selfishness; destroyed self-esteem, suicides...

Did you know that the Holy Inquisition exists, even today? It's not called that anymore, but "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith". Its main function is to carry out inquisitions as to if, and how, any text threatens the church's orthodoxy. I say "inquisitions" rather than "inquiries" purposefully, because this word carries all the interesting connotations the church piled on it during the centuries of reign of its like-named, cute, witch burning appendage. To try to maintain orthodoxy, whether you do it by burning people or telling them what to read, should be a crime.

If one considers immediate effects only, it would appear the church has greatly evolved and been mollified over the centuries (it's had some 20, after all). I mean, burning human flesh is much more severe than badmouthing a piece of writing, right? But what if that continued badmouthing has been equivalent to burning the collective brain of a society, to stopping millions of individuals from achieving the capacity of judging and deciding by themselves what and who is good or evil? Then there is no great difference.

Actually, i retract those last five words.

Has the church ever "rehabilitated" the thousands of purported witches and wizards burnt or tortured, or only famous ones like Leonardo? (he wasn't burnt, but probably it was his notoriety that saved him, too) Did it even keep track of them?

I wouldn't want to minimize their suffering, either, nor the church's debts in their respect. Also, ‘burning bodies’ and ‘burning brains’ are related activities, because those who saw someone burn feared it, and it is fear that delayed for centuries (and still delays) our full humanization, our ability to think and feel, to be willing to put ourselves in someone else’s skin.

Yet, in as much as physically burning people always concerned individuals or small groups, the collective burning of brains seems a much more heinous crime. A full fledged crime against humanity, in my view.

Of course, if i wanted to take someone to court, i wouldn't be able to. I'd take Humanity itself. The church is a manisfestation of ourselves, a wild, irrational fire springing from us all. As long as there is the fuel of human fear, violence, hatred, disrespect of nature, etc., there'll be a church, or its reincarnation. We have tried to take away its oxygen by dampening fear with science and reasoning; this has benefitted a few, i agree, but if left at that it's only a stopgap measure. It will work only for a while and, in fact, things are starting to get hot again. The temporary stalemate will be broken soon, and we might fall back.

The solution lies in empathy. But instead of empathy, the old church is looking for orthodoxy. Many times it extended itself through slaughter (look at what saint Olav did in Norway) and even now it continues to claim that all should hold one belief. It fails to trust people, to accept that we can tailor our own, fully ethical codes of conduct, and derive joy and comfort from living by them.

A code for empathy. A religion for empathy. A dogma for empathy. A rite for empathy. Make empathy into the new church. Leave god out of it. As a being he may be supreme, but as a concept, he's divisive, a wedge among the people. Keep him only to yourself. To the new chuch of empathy, where there's only people you may know or not, bring only your wish to be able to see through someone else's eyes.