General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: This is hard... [View all]Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)Yes, the catholic church *is* an organisation. But that's entirely irrelevant. What matters when judging the actions of catholics is not what you or I believe, but what they believe.
Most catholics believe that the catholic church is God's representative on earth; the most important thing in the world. I don't know how widely believed "extra ecclesiam nulli salas" is nowadays - I think not very - or whether it's an official doctrive, but certainly most catholics believe that they are ordered by the supreme being to remain in the church, no matter how temporally corrupt it becomes.
One should always separate judgements of ethics from judgements of fact. I don't share catholic belief about matters of fact, but I think it's utterly obvious that if those factual teachings *were* correct then there would be an overwhelming moral obligation to stay in, support and try to reform the catholic church, no matter what.
Talking about the catholic church as organisation makes it clear that you're talking about what you think catholics should do if they weren't actually catholics, rather than thinking about what actual catholics who believe god might think.