<< is it just that catholicism is more demanding (for lack of a better word)? or is it that people don't like the idea of having a middleman between them and god? >>
First, I am not Catholic, I was only raised in a predominantly Catholic community. Neighbors, friends, classmates, everyone was Catholic, so we were those 'heathens' that didn't go to church. lol!
I think one thing that makes Catholicism 'different', is that its so much larger and older than other organized religions. So, when the Catholic Church screws people up, there will be a lot more of them than when, say, Seventh Day Adventists screw people up. I think all religions are essentially screwing people up at the same rate, its just that there are SO many more Catholics, you invariably will get more screwed up 'recovering' Catholics. lol!
I believe the 'guilt' complex is probably what damages so many people. But, the Catholic church isn't even the worst in this area. My mother was raised in a southern 'hellfire and brimstone' Baptist church, where they frequently told little kids they were going to 'burn in eternal hell-fire and damnation' for any ridiculous little misbehavior. They didn't take-up rattlesnakes or anything, but it was one step removed from that sort of church.
It was one of those churches common in the old south where they would parade children in front of the church and all the parishoners would wail and pray and sing and holler until each of the children 'received Christ the Lord as thy Savior' or some other nonsense (the kids had no clue what was going on, they just did whatever the kids before them did so they would be praised and be allowed to go play). They even had spiritual healers and the like. I believe it was author Dick Gregory, in his autobiography, who wrote about attending a similar church in his youth, his description being humorous at times but very disturbing.
Many Catholic schools were notoriously militant years ago and many children were subjected to 'disciplinary' and 'character building' measures we would toss people in prison for today, and rightly so. Nuns used to cram the Catholic doctrine down your throat pretty hard, at least I've been told by people who should know. Of course, the Catholic Church's positions on divorce, pre-marital sex, contraception, among other things, all things for which you would be quickly ex-communicated not long ago, were considered antiquated by societal standards decades before the Church was forced to take their rhetoric down a few notches on these matters.
And of course the Catholic Church as no problem with gays, a dozen or more priests who have become frustrated and angry about the state of their Church have repeatedly went on record to say that in many cities their Church resembles less a place of worship and more like a Castro District gay bath house with dozens of homosexual priests frolicking about with other men (and each other) like nobody's business.
The notion that priests, bishops, and popes are elevated to almost deity-like status is rather disgusting. If I'm going to confess and repent, it will be to my God in privacy, not to someone who is no more qualified to accept my confession and forgive me than a frog. I WILL question the wisdom, judgement, or integrity of a priest, or even the Pope himself, if he gives me good cause to do so.
I think all of this patent arrogance is what leaves such a sour taste in people's mouths and it certainly doesn't pass the smell test. People prefer pastors and ministers who may be wiser than they about spiritual or theological matters, but don't pretend to be any more infalliable or 'Godly' than anyone else. If I were a church-goer, I'd want to go to a church lead by a pastor who started every sermon with "As I, a sinner just like you, stand before you today..." then goes out and smokes a cigarette after service.
But, the one glaring thing that sets the Catholic Church apart from the rest, is its undeniable complicity in the destruction of thousands upon thousands of lives by hundreds of child-molesting priests over the last half-century or more. No other church that I know of would tolerate known child molestors among their ranks, and it is clear that the Catholic Church from the Pope down KNEW such activity was going on and not only tolerated it, but deliberately PROTECTED pedophiles, covered-up their crimes, and sent them off to new 'assignments' so they could molest dozens more.
While it is true that one bad cop doesn't make all other cops bad, when a hundred other cops KNOW about a bad cop among their ranks, and they do NOTHING, indeed they actively PROTECT the bad cop and help him cover-up his crimes, that makes them all accomplices and they share culpability.
You cannot tell me the Pope himself, along with EVERY Bishop, Archbishop, and Cardinal in the last 25 years, did not know the Catholic Church had hundreds of pedophiles among its ranks. The very idea they didn't know is not only preposterous, its PROVABLY false.
The Catholic Church, from top to bottom, has SYSTEMATICALLY and DELIBERATELY covered-up and protected child molesting priests for a half century. Who 'approved' the more than 1,000 known settlements now uncovered - tens of millions of dollars - the Catholic Church has paid to the victims of their priests? Who 'approved' the cover-up of these settlements, insisted that they be sealed, insisted that in exchange for the settlement, the victims could never speak of the matter again?
If the Pope did not know, if EVERY Bishop and Cardinal did not know, that can only mean they are incompetent if not negligently stupid. They SHOULD have known, and therefore they should resign their posts in disgrace. I personally believe there are a hundred or so ranking members of the Catholic Church who should face criminal prosecution for their crimes of aiding and abetting child molestors and obstructing justice, but I would accept mass resignations.
It is impossible for something so sinister and intolerable to attain such a far-reaching extent as pedophilia among Catholic priests has without something being fundamentally 'ill' with the entire organization from top to bottom (that includes thousands of parishoners who have known about this for decades, but chose to remain silent to protect the image of their church and priests over the safety and well-being of children).
Ah hah, it's called a Sicilian Horn, I found it!
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