20) The history of the Catholic Church as a servant of the powerful Written by Rainer: rainer.lehrer@yahoo.com Learn languages (via Skype): Rainer: + 36 20 549 52 97 or + 36 20 334 79 74

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The history of the Catholic Church as a servant of the powerful How was it possible for the Catholic Church as an institution to last for so long and to be so successful? Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism have no unified institution and can be considered pure religions. It looks different with Catholicism. After Constantin having appointed the Church as state religion, she has been linked to the various ruling layers and served them as organizer and henchman ever since. At the time of Diocletian, the first Christians or early Christians were forced to gather in communities to better escape persecution. There were fewer slaves than middleclass artisans and small traders who turned to this ideology, so they often could read and write. Constantin made this small but throughout the empire spread minority his allies. The previously persecuted now helped him to control others. They fit well into the new system and made it their own. The boundaries of the former Roman administrative districts can still be partially recognized in the division of today's dioceses. When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, the Catholic Church without scruples offered the Germanic barbarians their administrative services. Thus, from the kingdom of the Goths to the Frankish kingdom, various kingdoms were created, all of which then disappeared again; only the Catholic Church remained and served the new rulers. Slowly nation-states appeared, which, as in 1906, constitutionally prescribed the separation of Church and state. So she turned to those powers who wanted to continue to use her services. England had her own Church, France wanted to live independently and communism was anti-religious. So she had no choice but to join fascism. Franco and Mussolini counted on her and Hitler concluded a pact of "respecting each other" with her. Had communism not been so hostile to religion, the Church would have served it as well. But what is the situation of the Church in the 21st century? From a financial point of view, it is pretty bad for Catholicism, though the Church is still one of the richest organizations in the world thanks to the riches she’s been able to accumulate over the centuries. In some states, such as Germany, there is still a church tax, in others it is otherwise supported by the state and believers still donate a lot of money. In order to manage her vast administrative apparatus, the organization uses monks and nuns, for whom she pays almost no tax, for example by curing them in her own hospitals and transferring them to church-owned old age homes at retirement age, or by free volunteer work by believers. Nevertheless, her importance is constantly decreasing. The German Pope Benedict went back to the past, wanted to reintroduce the church ceremony in Latin, thus creating a small but narrower elite circle out of church fellowship. The Church did not want to follow him. The question of women and homosexuals as pastors, paedophile scandals in many educational institutions of the Church, unassimilated past (Inquisition, Hitler pact, etc.), the right to abortion, slowly corrode her from the inside. But the world is changing too fast for dogmas to adapt to these changes adequately. Amen! Back to list!

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