Talking Treason in Church

This is a lay person’s handbook for renewing the Catholic church. Your renewal of the church can begin immediately. It needs no one’s approval. It depends totally on you and your fellow Catholics. It is certainly not beyond your abilities. All it takes is courage–courage to stand up to the hierarchy, the current leadership of our church, courage not to be satisfied with their lies, their underhanded practices, and their centuries-long arrogance. This reform will be effective beyond your wildest hopes, because it copies a great model, the one depicted in the New Testament, the one begun by Jesus. There is one difference between Talking Treason in Church and anything else written by Catholics on the current state of the church. Catholics today have written brilliant analyses of what’s wrong with the church, but when they come to the end of their book or their article–where you would expect to see proposed solutions–what you read is all wishful thinking: the church should listen more to the lay people, the hierarchy has to be more open to structural change. Or their book or article demands intensive lobbying of the hierarchy by the laity, thousands and thousands of hours spent by lay people in forming groups, getting up petitions, trying by every possible means of persuasion and political pressure to move the hierarchy from their position of intransigence and inattention. It’s all pie in the sky! Why should the laity make superhuman efforts while nothing can be required of the hierarchy? We’re dealing with the same narrow, self-interested, ignorant, arrogant, hard-nosed hierarchy that flouted, persecuted, and killed every reformer it could lay its hands on five centuries ago. Some hierarchs at least would do the same today if the judgment of the entire world were not against them. They are creatures of power in a structure of power that deserves to be uprooted. And thanks basically to the progress of learning, that project is now doable. At the same time, it is important to point out that what we are taking aim at is not personalities. It is a ruling idea, the idea of hierarchy. It comprises everything that is wrong with the Catholic church: papacy, papal court, subordination of bishops, priestly rule, and utter contempt for the laity. We are not opposed to the many good priests and bishops who are part of the Catholic church and who feel the burden of hierarchy in some ways more than the laity do. In fact these priests and bishops are our natural allies. The one difference between this book and everything preceding it is that it presents a practical solution, a way in which lay people can begin at once to renew the Catholic church. This book demonstrates through an examination of Christian origins that the church began with the laity and that the controlling power of the church remains in our hands, if we have but the sense to use it. First, Jesus Christ was a lay person, not a priest, and the movement of reform that he began in Judaism was a lay movement. The chief priests, the hierarchy of his time, considered him a threat and had him put to death by the Romans. Second, neither the Catholic priesthood nor the Catholic hierarchy existed during the first century of our era. There is no scriptural nor historical basis for either one at that time. In fact, the Mass, the center of Catholic sacramental life was, during the first century, celebrated by lay people and, notably in the earliest days of the church, by women in their own homes. Third, the hierarchical priesthood, when it began to emerge during the second through the fourth centuries, was strongly influenced by the model of the Roman imperial administration. It also drew on examples of priesthoods throughout the ancient world including that of Israel. It was a movement toward the kind of religious specialization that was familiar in the ancient world. But it owed nothing to the teaching of Jesus Christ. Fourth, the foundation myth of the Roman Catholic church as propounded by the hierarchy makes St. Peter the first bishop of Rome. That myth is made up of so many historical fallacies that any member of the hierarchy with even a smattering of historical education should be embarrassed to cite it. But by some of the hierarchy this myth is used knowingly as a political construct to support their will to power. These members of the hierarchy are conscious liars and deserve no place in the Catholic church. Fifth, the Catholic hierarchy, the pope and the bishops, down through the centuries have been sometimes more and sometimes considerably less successful at asserting their exclusive right to rule the church. In fact, there are enough instances in the early church of the popular election of bishops to provide a controlling precedent for our time. Sixth, today, the Catholic laity are totally excluded by the hierarchy from choosing their religious leaders or having any discourse whatsoever with the leadership of the church. The effect has been to erect a wall of separation between the hierarchy and the laity. This is a serious sin on the part of the bishops, a sin against the Holy Spirit who dwells in lay people at least as much as in the hierarchy. It is called schism. It has created a paralysis in the church which gives the hierarchy–and the rest of us by extension–the appearance of being brain-dead. The hierarchy have laid themselves open to a number of criticisms straight out of the New Testament. The chief one we should instance now is: “You have nullified the word of God for the sake of your tradition. Hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy about you when he said: “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’” (Mt 15: 6-9) That is precisely what the Catholic hierarchy are guilty of. When asked to justify their hierarchical rule, they point to authorities that they themselves have trumped up, human traditions tricked out as divine doctrines. It won’t wash. For as Jesus says in discussing marriage and divorce, “From the beginning, it was not so.” (Mt 19:8) The sum of all these charges is that the current leadership of the Catholic Church, the hierarchy, are the wolves in sheep’s clothing, the hirelings who care nothing for the sheep, that Jesus Christ foretold in the gospels. They are imposters. Because they have not submitted themselves to a vote of the lay people before assuming office, their ordinations are invalid. The vast church of lay Catholics throughout the world cannot and does not depend upon them; they depend upon us for their continued support. Thus there is really no question of talking treason against them. We have rather the duty under God to oust them from office as soon as possible. But we should recognize what we are up against. The mindset of the Official Catholic Church is still that of a totalitarian government. It rules through threats and intimidation. If threats do not work, it adopts an attitude of passive aggression. It simply refuses to cooperate. It hides its doings under a cloak of secrecy, refuses to respond, refuses to communicate. But it cannot continue this pose without the support of masses of lay people. And the fact is that the laity in the United States have been leaving the church in droves. The children of strong Catholic families simply have not continued the practice of the faith in which they were raised. They don’t consider the (Official Catholic) Church relevant to their lives. And they are right. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the same situation exists throughout the Western world. So the Official Catholic Church governing system is doomed in any case, even without our efforts, under the impulse, I believe, of the Holy Spirit.