How Power of The Catholic Church Has Changed Over the Past Decade
Abstract
The catholic church is one of the world’s major religions and is followed by close to a third of the world population. There have been reports that the church was founded before the ascending of Jesus Christ somewhere around the first century. The church has been healthy, with some of the best doctrines used to lead the faithful. However, in the last decade, the power of the church had declined severely. The decline has been associated with misconduct among the church’s top leadership, including sexual assault, abortions, countercry, and other forms of assault of the catholic belief.
The Changing Power of The Catholic Church Over the Last Decade
Being one of the world’s major religions, the catholic faith, as well as the overall catholic church, has been having much power towards the proclamation of faith. The catholic faith is one of the Christian faith subdivisions and is by far the widely practiced religion worldwide, commanding a massive multitude of about a third of the entire world population (Holmes, 2002). The church had remained one of the most potent religions until the last decade when the power started to change slowly. The church’s changing power has been associated with scandals within the top church leadership, which includes reports of sexual assault, abortion, countercry, among many others. This research seeks to connect the changing power of the church to the various scandals associated with it.
The catholic church’s power has been dramatically affected by the many sexual scandals that it has been associated with. The sexual harassment of juniors started a long time, but It was not until around the start of the 21st century that revelation of the sexual misconduct of the top church leadership was exposed (T.G Plante, 2011). There were reports across the board of the church leadership being involved in rape cases such as sodomy. The church has been severely put to task concerning the conduct of the nuns, priests, and the religious order members concerning the sexual harassment claims of young boys and girls following the faith.
The church officials have been trying to cover up the incidences of sexual harassment to preserve the dignity of the church in vain. The sexual cases are forwarded to the Catholic hierarchy members who, in turn, transfer the convicts to serve in other parishes. The tolerance of the catholic church toward the misconduct of its officials has caused the tremendous change in the power associated with the church as more members of the faith cast doubt on their leaders’ ability to lead in righteousness effectively. Pope Francis has come out, calling an end to the increasing cases of sexual harassment within the church (Rashid & Barron, 2019).
The increasing divorce cases had been another problem associated with the church’s changing power in the last decade. The catholic doctrines discourage divorce as those whom divorce is thought to live in sin continually. However, the cases of legal divorce within the church have continually increasing casting doubt on the church leadership’s ability to control faithful towards the right direction through the teaching on marriage (JEAN LAFFÍTTE, 2017). Apart from divorce, the top church leadership has been severely put to task over controversy marrying, which the catholic faith prohibits them as their sole purpose is to serve the congregation in purity and holiness.
There have also been cases of abortion within the church. Some of the top church leaders have moved to voice out their support of abortion, which goes against the teaching of Jesus. There have also been reports of nun seeking abortion procedure secretly after getting pregnant due to cohabiting with the top church leadership. Across the globe, some Catholic leaders have been calling on various constitutional reforms to allow for medically advised abortion procedures. Abortion being widely rejected procedure by governments worldwide, the proclamation of the church’s leadership towards the support of abortion has dramatically changed the position of the church’s leadership, with many losing trust in the catholic power.
There have been cases of increased corruption within the church for the last decade. The reported cases include siphonic of church funding through corrupt dealings of the leadership (DOUGHERTY, 2018). The corruption allegation has not yet met some legal proceedings as there has been difficulty in financial auditing for the funding that the various churches receive. As a result, many financiers towards developing the church’s projects have pulled out, citing misuse of their donations. This act of corruption has dramatically affected the power of the catholic faith.
With the increasing misconduct of the top church’s leadership, the catholic church’s power has dramatically been affected. The once compelling religion with a strict code of conduct has fallen short of its initial position to become a traditional religion that violates the same faith that it proclaims. Consequently, the number of the faithful is proclaiming the catholic faith has drastically reduced, and it is projected that some other religions such as the protestant Christian and the Islamic may surplus the catholic faith in terms of the numbers of faithful that thy boast.
Although there has been a decline in the church’s power, the decline may be reverted before it is too late. Starting with the papacy, the church’s top leadership may choose to rebuild the catholic faith before it finally crumbles to the ground. Some of the leading measures should include strict adherence to the code of conduct guiding the church, and any religious leader found in contravention of the conduct should be expelled from the leadership. This is because the church leadership’s conduct continually declines; the power of the church falls as the faithful’s proclaim new faith in other religions.
References
DOUGHERTY, M. B. (2018). The Case Against Pope Francis. National Review, 29-32.
Holmes, J. D. (2002). A short history of the Catholic church (Millennium ed. / with a. Burns & Oates, 1-16.
JEAN LAFFÍTTE, M. (2017). Marriage and Mercy: The Sacrament of Conjugal Love Put to a Discussion. otono2017, Vol. 22, Issue 84, 40-51.
Rashid, F., & Barron, I. (2019). Why the Focus on Clerical Child Abuse has Largely Remained on the Catholic Church and other Non-Catholic Dominations and Religions. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 564-585.
T.G Plante, M. K. (2011). Sexual abuse in the Catholic Church: a decade of crisis, 2002-. ABC-CLIO, one web page.