I did see The Young Pope, and I loved it. But getting to your substantive point, you seem to think that pederasty has plagued the Church since its beginning, which doesn't seem to be the case. Priests are fallible humans, and some of them struggle with sexual continence more than others (just like the laity does); but the recent rash of abuse scandals are a distinctly modern phenomenon. To my mind, that means that cause is likely found in changes made within the last couple hundred years, and not in a practice that is explicitly endorsed by Jesus and St. Paul.
I don't necessarily think it's plagued the Church since it's beginning, but I think you're naive if you believe it a modern phenomenon. It is only recently however that people felt strong enough to report such abuse. 500 years ago, a victim might fear for his life for reporting something about the Church.
The Catholic Church is not doing well in Latin America currently. It's growing most strongly in Africa and southeast Asia. It's obvious that local culture impacts how receptive various peoples are to the Gospel, but that's always been true. But again, I think you're coming at this from the wrong angle. Culture requires a
cultus, a sense of sacred order, around which to form; in other words, culture is downstream from theology. So I think the better question is-- what went wrong with Western theology/ culture that allowed for this to happen?
An obvious observation, it seems the Church is doing best, or is more effective when they have a poor, or downtrodden flock (Africa, SE Asia). I'd be interested in your thoughts why we are more successful in those areas. And also your thoughts on how the Church went wrong (Western theology).
This sort of assertion needs a citation to back it up. On one hand, celibacy can obviously be challenging because it means foregoing something that is very good (marriage); just as fasting, by refraining from eating, confirms the goodness of food. But fasting and celibacy have a long and well-documented pedigree as important Christian spiritual practices (and to the extent that Protestants no longer engage in them, one should ask why and whether that's a good thing). Fasting and celibacy are ways of disconnecting oneself from worldly goods so that a Christian can better focus on heavenly ones. Why you wouldn't want your priest or pastor to be as Godly as possible is beyond me.
Also, and this gets back to my statement about needing a citation, I think you'd be hard pressed to find evidence that the vow of celibacy is
uniquely challenging compared to the other vows that Catholic religious have to take, like poverty and obedience. "This is hard, so we should stop doing it" is pretty terrible advice.
We can limit the discussion to the Popes who where either married or had children, or both throughout history. Not to mention our founding father (pope) was married with children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sexually_active_popes
To preface my next comments, I don't necessarily equate celibacy to godliness. And I'm in no way saying we should abandon it because it's hard. I simply believe a married man can adequately serve God as a priest. We can dance all around the room about 9-5 jobs, etc., but I've closely seen the inner-workings of two large parishes (I grew up right down the street from both) from early childhood till end of HS. I played racquetball throughout middle school and HS with one of the priests, so I'm pretty familiar with the demands put on him. My uncle easily spent as much or more time administering to his flock. It's that simple. I'm not saying our priest were lazy, they were not. It just is what it is. The argument about the demands is simply not what I have experienced first hand.
Just saw an encouraging update on that situation, as
Pope Francis just defrocked him.
This is a good update. I just hope it's not for show and all about timing.
We've certainly had some very bad popes before, but none of them, not even Alexander VI, ever made a solemn
ex cathedra pronouncement in error. To reiterate, Papal Infallibility is an extension of the dogma that the Holy Spirit protects the Church from teaching error. So when a Pope invokes his authority and issues a solemn decree relating to faith and morals, Catholics can rest assured that it reliable. But that doesn't extend to remarks made off the cuff to reporters on an airplane, or homilies given in the Casa Santa Marta, etc.
Are there no examples of Popes changing decrees relating to faith and morals?
It's been a while since I've read anything on PI, but I'll try to find time this weekend. What stuck in my mind is that it seemed an invention of convenience during the FVC. And I just don't know if I could ever by that it was OK for a Pope to act with evil, but all of his decrees could not be questioned. Why would the Holy Spirit only protect the flock from a Popes words, and not his actions.
... means you shall not
murder, which obviously turns on justification. And while this is one subject upon which well-catechized Catholics can disagree, the weight of the Tradition (Augustine, Aquinas, Bellarmine, Liguori, and many popes) have argued that a temporal authority can justly impose capital punishment as long as certain conditions are met.
I'm perfectly fine with the death penalty. I just find the topic interesting as the Church in SVC strongly opposed it as does our current pope.
As I mentioned above, your assumption that there are lots of "masculine hetero men" who would join the priesthood but for the vow of celibacy isn't very reasonable; not to mention an offensive stereotype about priests--the parochial vicar at my parish is an avid outdoorsman, and is no one's idea of effeminate. Vocations have gone and up down through the ages for a lot of different reasons, but clerical celibacy has always been preferred from the Church's earliest days, and was codified into a general discipline later. What other vows should we toss? Perhaps there are wealthy young men who would become priests but for the vow of poverty? Or maybe we should go full Prot and ditch the vow of obedience, so if your Bishop pisses you off, you just head down to the local stripmall and "plant" a new church?
Why isn't it very reasonable? Not saying all clergy lack masculinity. Most of the priest I grew up with were very "manly". There were a few who weren't, but not the whole lot. One can't argue however about the growing number of gay priest. And we certainly can argue the historical (modern or not) pederast problem.
And why is questioning one thing, an assault on everything?
If the Vatican sold off its holdings, it would receive a temporary windfall, but nowhere near enough money to permanently end poverty. And then those pieces-- including the greatest artwork humanity has ever produced-- would disappear into private collections, never to be seen by a poor person again. Much of that was gifted to the Church by European aristocrats during Christendom, and its much better to leave the Church as its conservator for the benefit of humanity than the alternative.
If you'll recall, Judas made a similar argument in John 12:5 against Mary's use of expensive perfume to anoint Jesus' feet... Never a good idea to be echoing Judas.
Regardless, the Catholic Church's wealth is commonly exaggerated. Disregard the priceless works of art and architecture that it holds as conservator for the benefit of humanity, and it's just as cash-strapped as most other charitable organizations.
