The Heavens Are Silent

[sacredheartandbloodofjesus]

[quote name='Era Might' date='05 March 2010 - 12:49 AM' timestamp='1267768149' post='2066947']
It is not scandal that drives me away. Just the opposite. It is the institutionalization of good. You mention one of the major problems with what the Church has become. It has become a "provider of charity." It has taken the absolutely free and personal vocation of love to which Christ invited each person, and it has turned that vocation into institutions. Western civilization is built on the premise of institutionalization. It was the Church that gave birth to Western civilization, because it was the Church that institutionalized the Gospel. The Apostles were holy f[i][/i]ools and fishers of men. The Church took this beautiful witness of the Apostolic vocation, and turned it into a religious government. Popes and Bishops become princes of this world. The Church went from a witness to a free vocation of grace offered by Christ, and instead the Church became a sociopolitical institution that attempted to institutionalize the Gospel so as to bring everyone into the Church's sphere of influence. The Apostles and the early Christians gave their lives as non-violent martyrs. In contrast, later Popes called for Christians to kill the infidel. Today, the Church is buried under centuries of institutionalization. The Church of Western civilization can have no real courage, because true courage would threaten the Church's institutions. The fact that the Pope has armed guards exemplifies to me the utter perversion of the Gospel that has taken place in the Church over the centuries. Everything in the Church is institutionalized. The vocation to love is exercised through "charitable institutions" rather than in our own homes. The passing on of the faith is done through schooling institutions where "Christians" are manufactured like machines in a factory. Gone is the free and personal decision of discipleship; the Church has become a cultural institution rather than a prophetic witness to Christ. And in this respect, the Church is like every other religion. The Egyptians had their cultural religion. The Greeks had their cultural religion. The Muslims have their cultural religion. The Hindus have their cultural religion. All of these religions were/are sociocultural institutions, and so is the Church. So how I am I to believe that the Church is any different from any other religion? The Gospel is beautiful and utterly transcendent. But I no longer see the Gospel being witnessed to as it was in the early Church, because the Church has been corrupted through institutionalization. The Church is worried about protecting the Pope's institutional office, and hence he has armed guards. The idea of Christ or St. Peter with armed guards would be laughable if it weren't so blasphemous.
[/quote]


Sounds like you may have a Franciscan vocation.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Era Might' date='05 March 2010 - 12:49 AM' timestamp='1267768149' post='2066947']
It is not scandal that drives me away. Just the opposite. It is the institutionalization of good. You mention one of the major problems with what the Church has become. It has become a "provider of charity." It has taken the absolutely free and personal vocation of love to which Christ invited each person, and it has turned that vocation into institutions. Western civilization is built on the premise of institutionalization. It was the Church that gave birth to Western civilization, because it was the Church that institutionalized the Gospel. The Apostles were holy geniuses and fishers of men. The Church took this beautiful witness of the Apostolic vocation, and turned it into a religious government. Popes and Bishops become princes of this world. The Church went from a witness to a free vocation of grace offered by Christ, and instead the Church became to a sociopolitical institution that attempted to institutionalize the Gospel so as to bring everyone into the Church's institutional sphere of influence. The Apostles and the early Christians gave their lives as non-violent martyrs. In contrast, later Popes called for Christians to kill the infidel. Today, the Church is buried under centuries of institutionalization. The Church of Western civilization can have no real courage, because true courage would threaten the Church's institutions. The fact that the Pope has armed guards exemplifies to me to utter perversion of the Gospel that has taken place in the Church over the centuries. I have respect for Pope Benedict as a man, but as a Bishop he represents the institution and everything that goes with it. Everything in the Church is institutionalized. The vocation to love is exercised through "charitable institutions" rather than in our own homes. The passing on of the faith is done through schooling institutions where "Christians" are manufactured like machines in a factory. Gone is the free and personal decision of discipleship; the Church has become a cultural institution rather than a prophetic witness to Christ. And in this respect, the Church is like every other religion. The Egyptians had their cultural religion. The Greeks had their cultural religion. The Muslims have their cultural religion. The Hindus have their cultural religion. All of these religions were/are sociocultural institutions, and so is the Church. So how I am I to believe that the Church is any different from any other religion? The Gospel is beautiful and utterly transcendent. But I no longer see the Gospel being witnessed to as it was in the early Church, because the Church has been corrupted through institutionalization. The Pope is worried about protecting his institutional office, and hence he has armed guards. The idea of Christ or St. Peter with armed guards would be laughable if it weren't so blasphemous.
[/quote]

As always, when in doubt, do as they say, not as they do. The Popes have always talked about [i]interpersonal relationships. [/i]They don't extol the idea of making charity a type of 9-5 business. The institution is merely a sturdy framework in which people can act in charitable ways. Mother Teresa is a beautiful exemplification of the Catholic life, the antithesis of what you hate to see in the Church. She had an organization, a system, and buildings that helped her carry on her works of individual, personal love. And it helped other individuals do the same, acting in concert with her. The acts didn't become less loving because there was an institution supporting it.

The Church, as an institution, is a spiritual army, in a spiritual war. The weapons are love. The corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The orders might be considered "Special Forces." Laypeople are guerilla cells: operating autonomously with general and remote direction from above, but also capable of acting in concert with other cells for the Cause. It's as institutionalized as you want to let it be. It's not holding you back. You can love as much as you want, in whatever way you want. You no longer see the Gospel being witnessed to as in the early Church because the Gospel is seldom witnessed to as it was in the early Church. But nothing is stopping you from living the Gospel like it was lived then. God sent a lot of zealous, fiery-eyed religious people to heap a lot of hot coals on people's heads when they became spiritually complacent and decadent. It's happened in all the religious orders, from St. Francis to St. Teresa to St. Catherine of Siena. Look at the good being wrought, on a personal, individual level, through the loving work of Fr. Benedict Groeschel's boys, the Fransiscan Friars of the Renewal. These orders not only accept donations for their "institution," but most orders are more than happy have you, as an individual, come and personally volunteer to witness to other individuals, ministering to their bodies and souls. And again, nothing and nobody is stopping you from pursuing these good ends on your own. It is as you say: individual witnessing to the Gospel is the most important work that can be done by any individual. The goal is to live one's life in a holy way and have others say, "Who is that person?" and through this blameless and good life, introduce them to the love of Christ. That's my game plan, but I have a long, long road ahead of me.

~Sternhauser

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='sacredheartandbloodofjesus' date='05 March 2010 - 01:24 AM' timestamp='1267770256' post='2066959']
Sounds like you may have a Franciscan vocation.
[/quote]

Indeed he may.

~Sternhauser

[cmotherofpirl]

Agreed.

Saint Francis wrote in his rule, "The rule and life of the friars minor is to live the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ..."
Sounds like what you are looking for:
http://www.franciscanfriars.com/welcome/index.htm

[sacredheartandbloodofjesus]

Remember that Christ had a money bag for collections, He also had followers, they were told when and when not to do something by Him much like the authority of the Church. He sent them here or he sent them there. He told them to do this or he told them to do that. Much like the Church.

[Era Might]

[quote name='sacredheartandbloodofjesus' date='05 March 2010 - 01:24 AM' timestamp='1267770256' post='2066959']
Sounds like you may have a Franciscan vocation.
[/quote]
As I said, I cannot work within the institution. That includes religious life, which has been institutionalized like everything else in the Church. Priests and religious are free labor for the ecclesial institution. The Church builds all kinds of institutions precisely because it has this free labor (e.g., nuns and Jesuits to run schooling institutions). The religious orders have become branches in the worldwide ecclesial institution. Becoming a monk or a nun means becoming a sort of employee for the worldwide ecclesial institution, because joining the religious order is by extension making a commitment to the ecclesial institution. I am not against religious life, but I do not believe in institutionalized religious life. As I said, the best I can do is ignore the Church as an institution, because the institution inevitably wants to control and manage everything, even your vocation.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Era Might' date='05 March 2010 - 02:40 AM' timestamp='1267771255' post='2066968']
As I said, I cannot work within the institution. That includes religious life, which has been institutionalized like everything else in the Church. Priests and religious are free labor for the ecclesial institution. The Church builds all kinds of institutions precisely because it has this free labor (e.g., nuns and Jesuits to run schooling institutions). The religious orders have become branches in the worldwide ecclesial institution. Becoming a monk or a nun means becoming a sort of employee for the worldwide ecclesial institution, because joining the religious order is by extension making a commitment to the ecclesial institution. I am not against religious life, but I do not believe in institutionalized religious life. As I said, the best I can do is ignore the Church as an institution, because the institution inevitably wants to control and manage everything, even your vocation.
[/quote]
Have you ever met one of the Renewal friars ?

Seriously.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/03/nyregion/soul-s-serenity-in-the-south-bronx.html

[MissyP89]

Era, brother, you have prayers from someone who is walking that desert right with you.

Though, I don't know...if your problem is with the institution, then why not just be who you are? The Church is hardly asking you to become some cookie cutter robot for the Holy See, parroting off encyclicals in Latin.

Sometimes the horror in the walls of our parishes can be enough to force us to bury our heads in our hands and weep. If He protects us so much, then where is He? Why are some people on higher rungs of the ladder than you and I allowed to crush the faith of the innocent?

I don't stay for the system, that's for darn sure. I actually tend to have a fair bit of distaste for the hierarchal arrogance and politicking in the Church.

But you know what, man? They're just people. Just like us. Why let them get to you? If you hate the system, live the Gospel with such incredible brilliance that people are blown away by your Catholicism. Give honor back to the name. It's what I try to do, if all I can affect is my tiny little corner of the universe. I don't like what I see, so by living my Faith boldly and speaking out against those who abuse it, I can carry some light.

Don't walk away. You say yourself that you believe in what the Church teaches...where can you go if not right here? And there is no happiness, no peace after you know all that and leave it. Home will always be home. Blaze a trail in the Church, and turn a blind eye to the people that get under your skin. Jesus did it with the Pharisees, after all.

Do you get along with your pastor? That might be part of the issue. Do you have someone you do respect in the Church who you can vent to? Just a few weeks ago, my chaplain at school shut us into his office and let me scream, cry, rant and swear about this very thing.

It's getting better now. I find that the more I let anger and doubt get to me, the worse I become. Focus on Him right now. Keep going to Mass and Confession. Let Him love on you for a while and shut out the rest of the world while He works.

You'll be okay. Just don't give up. *hugs*

Pax,
Melissa

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Era Might' date='05 March 2010 - 01:40 AM' timestamp='1267771255' post='2066968']
As I said, I cannot work within the institution. That includes religious life, which has been institutionalized like everything else in the Church. Priests and religious are free labor for the ecclesial institution. The Church builds all kinds of institutions precisely because it has this free labor (e.g., nuns and Jesuits to run schooling institutions). The religious orders have become branches in the worldwide ecclesial institution. Becoming a monk or a nun means becoming a sort of employee for the worldwide ecclesial institution, because joining the religious order is by extension making a commitment to the ecclesial institution. I am not against religious life, but I do not believe in institutionalized religious life. As I said, the best I can do is ignore the Church as an institution, because the institution inevitably wants to control and manage everything, even your vocation.
[/quote]
I wouldn't say that institutions are the problem so much as bureaucracy is the problem, but I generally agree. People should join religious life to draw close to Christ and serve the Church, but the Church all too often takes religious out of authentic religious life to place them in positions where they are closer to the world than to Christ. Case in point: our school superintendent is usually seen as a nice lady in charge of all the schools and a decent organizer, but most people don't see her as a sister who ought to have ample time to pray instead of spending all day in an office.

[Winchester]

What, exactly, do you mean by "institution"? Trying to figure that out is a serious problem in understanding what you're saying is the problem. It seems to be a repulsion to governing bodies.

[Saint Therese]

[quote name='Lil Red' date='04 March 2010 - 02:17 PM' timestamp='1267730278' post='2066562']
+JMJ+
imho,
it sounds like to me, the devil is working on you hard, tempting you to despair. I will pray for Mary's intercession for you today.
[/quote]


I agree. Don't take all the thoughts that pass through your head too seriously. My suggestion is pray the Rosary. I don't mean that to sound trite.

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='04 March 2010 - 02:52 PM' timestamp='1267732367' post='2066582']
I hear God in the silence.
[/quote]


Same here. I think consolations in the spiritual life are found mostly in the beginning stages. When you're stronger spiritually I think God may be more hidden, in order to increase your hope and faith (Imho).

[quote name='Winchester' date='04 March 2010 - 11:48 PM' timestamp='1267764484' post='2066918']
If you adopted feudal monarchy, things would be easier.

Seriously, I think about that all the time.
[/quote]

[Maggyie]

I get where you are coming from Era. Everything the Church teaches seems logical (apostolic succession etc) so if you can't accept The Church as she is (as an institution) then everything else comes crumbling down: the divinity of Christ, the existence of God etc.

It's something everyone considers: When Christ was on earth, did he really intend to create something that would evolve into a massive structure? Wasn't His message more for individual transformation and conversion? Did He really envision something that would turn into dioceses, paperwork, reams of canon law etc?

I think the answer is more or less yes. Because Christ knew He was coming for the human race, and in order for humans to do things efficiently and effectively, they need organization and structure. You can kind of see this in the assignment of various roles within the Apostles (Judas had the money, Peter was the head etc). And I'm sure He foresaw that as the gospel mission expanded and the world became more complex that these mini-structures would grow.

It is certainly questionable whether the level of institutionalization we find currently in the Church is helpful or willed by God. If you look at religious life you can see how a lot of the "control" and "management" is for the advancement of the People of God and for more effectively evangelizing. But a lot of it is extraneous and not necessary for the religious themselves to advance in holiness. The message of the Church remains as simple as ever, repent, believe in the Gospel, pick up your cross and follow Him. But getting that message out and helping people live it can be a lot more complex. Not as complex as the Church makes it perhaps. But I think Jesus understands this and planned for it.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Era Might' date='05 March 2010 - 01:40 AM' timestamp='1267771255' post='2066968']
As I said, I cannot work within the institution. That includes religious life, which has been institutionalized like everything else in the Church. Priests and religious are free labor for the ecclesial institution. The Church builds all kinds of institutions precisely because it has this free labor (e.g., nuns and Jesuits to run schooling institutions). The religious orders have become branches in the worldwide ecclesial institution. Becoming a monk or a nun means becoming a sort of employee for the worldwide ecclesial institution, because joining the religious order is by extension making a commitment to the ecclesial institution. I am not against religious life, but I do not believe in institutionalized religious life. As I said, the best I can do is ignore the Church as an institution, because the institution inevitably wants to control and manage everything, even your vocation.
[/quote]
I can empathize with some of your feelings regarding excessive bureaucracy, which can be a problem in the Church as in everything else in modern society. Unfortunately, however, it seems you've let this turn into a general hatred of any and all authority, rules, and discipline of any kind (extending even to mass attendance and fasting requirements). Such a mentality is not in accord with the thinking of the Church, and I think is quite dangerous, edging on spiritual pride. It's a bad sign when you think you personally know better than the Church and the saints, and that the Church has gotten everything wrong all these centuries. It's often a short step from hating the "institutional Church" to actually hating the Catholic Church itself, and open rebellion from its precepts.
Don't take this the wrong way - I'm not trying to accuse or judge you, but just give you some serious things to think about and consider.
I think the key here is to approach your problems in prayer with an attitude of sincere humility before God and His Church, admitting that you personally don't have the answers.
Religious orders may or may not be for you, but that can only be answered between you and God. However, contempt for them all as "institutions" crosses a line.
I don't have much advice, and can't claim to be a font of spiritual wisdom, but I definitely think prayer and an attitude of spiritual humility in is in order. You need to have humility as your focus and starting point, rather than bitterness against Church "institutions" and rules.

Edited March 5, 2010 by Socrates

[kafka]

I have asked all the same questions. I think this is being very modern in a good way and very honest. My big problem was if there is a Living God, he absolutely must get involved with the current state of affairs. The Church and the world has become too evil. We've cut ourselves off from the reality God created for us, and no one can solve the problem of modern life as we have been plunged into a situation that is literally beyond anyone to solve.

So I started to find the answers in Sacred Scripture. That God has a plan to renew everything in phases. He predicted His Incarnation, His Passion, His Death through the prophets like Isaiah in great Songs of the Servant of the Lord. And he has predicted our times in Sacred Scripture. And then I realized we are living on the brink of the the End Times and God has a whole new plan for us leading up to His Second Coming, the general judgment, resurrection and a creation of a New Heaven and New Earth.

So all these problems we are facing today are a part of God's plan, and he wants us to continually search for him and struggle with all of this. He wants us to fight evil even to the point of sacrificing all the modern comforts and conveniences. He wants to take the human heart places it has never gone before. He wants to renew the human heart, the Church and the World. The Church needs to be transfigured, transformed.

So I am expecting God to get involved very soon. He will initiate his End Times. All the good prayers of the Faithful for example to end abortion and to feed the starving children all over the world, and to destroy all the attitude of disbelief and mocking will be answered according to His own plan and even swiftly. He will make up for lost time. I am very confident (on my good days) he will, yet I usually go through my own spiritual crisis a couple times a year. Usually at these times I always have to dig deeper and believe it or not I usually find help in Pope Benedict's writings. He is a very wise man.

Good discussion.

Edited March 5, 2010 by kafka

[Saint Therese]

There has always been evil in the Church and the world. I don't really think either are more evil now than ever before. Its just a matter of perspective.
I mean, one of the apostles betrayed Jesus and caused His death. Why should we be surprised when it happens today?

Edited March 5, 2010 by Saint Therese

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote name='Era Might' date='05 March 2010 - 12:49 AM' timestamp='1267768149' post='2066947']
[a major probelm is]is the institutionalization of good. You mention one of the major problems with what the Church has become. It has become a "provider of charity." It has taken the absolutely free and personal vocation of love to which Christ invited each person, and it has turned that vocation into institutions. Western civilization is built on the premise of institutionalization. It was the Church that gave birth to Western civilization, because it was the Church that institutionalized the Gospel. The Apostles were holy geniuses and fishers of men. The Church took this beautiful witness of the Apostolic vocation, and turned it into a religious government. [....] Today, the Church is buried under centuries of institutionalization. The Church of Western civilization can have no real courage, because true courage would threaten the Church's institutions. [...] The vocation to love is exercised through "charitable institutions" rather than in our own homes. The passing on of the faith is done through schooling institutions where "Christians" are manufactured like machines in a factory. Gone is the free and personal decision of discipleship; the Church has become a cultural institution rather than a prophetic witness to Christ.
[/quote]

i really identify and have been having similar thoughts to these words. id save these words. especially the stuff about the institutionalization of good, and how no real courage can exist as it threatens the church institutions.

[Winchester]

Oh good, now the confusion will just melt away.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' date='05 March 2010 - 03:17 PM' timestamp='1267820261' post='2067190']
i really identify and have been having similar thoughts to these words. id save these words. especially the stuff about the institutionalization of good, and how no real courage can exist as it threatens the church institutions.
[/quote]

that stuff about the institutionalization of good, and lack of courage, and lack of true personal decisions. it's actually a good philosophical foundation for more protestant ideas, particularly vis a vis the 'the church needs to be one, physically and otherwise' that catholics often pound.
see, after the factual and biblical debates boil down about whether the catholic church is true, catholisc often resort to philosophical arguemnts abo0ut 'one church' and 'that has to be what God wants'. i see the connection better now, between teh 'have you accepted jesus as your personal lord and savoir' etc rhetoric, and the way to philosophically oppose 'the church must be one in all ways' stuff.
it all boils down to 'if i were God, what would I do'?
before id jsut say 'one church in all ways isn't what god wants necessarily', but now i'd say, instutionalizatio isn't necesarily want God wants, philosophycall speaking.

i do know ive always found it cheap, that ya go to church cause ya have to etc. it's like, what about goig to commune with other christians, in a less 'have to' sort of way? not that the random bible church or methodist church is any better but. it's not grass roots, arguably what God wants. i do know though, that i sometimes find 'family' obligatios as cheap, or 'friends with your roomate cause he's your roomate' etc etc, anything institutioal, as cheap. God did create us as a family though, so i can't complain too much, maybe i cant for an insitutioalized church either- it might be the same idea.

Edited March 5, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[jkaands]

[quote name='Era Might' date='04 March 2010 - 01:02 PM' timestamp='1267729337' post='2066553']
I cannot shake the feeling that there is no God. The Gospel makes sense to me. Christ makes sense to me. If there is a God, then Christ is certainly God. And yet the Heavens are silent. The ancient Greeks were convinced of a world of gods in the heavens. They were as convinced about their gods as we are about Christ. And yet today we look back at the Greek gods and chuckle that anyone ever believed in them, even if we regard the Greek myths as interesting stories. I cannot shake the feeling that Christ is our "interesting story." If there is no God, then Christ is certainly the greatest work of fiction that the world ever has or ever will create. If there is no God, then why not believe in Christ? At least he's a beautiful story, even if it's not true. But still, the heavens are silent. I have never seen any cripples cured before my eyes. I have never seen a person raised from the dead. I have never seen any visions. I am not saying that these things did not happen as the Gospels say they did...I'm just saying that I've never seen them. The Greeks also believed in all kinds of wondrous events...and yet those events that the Greeks believed in were false, because the Greek gods were false.

This post is not meant as a declaration of atheism, I'm just throwing out something that's been on my mind. Feel free to respond however you want.

I cannot shake these lines from my mind:


"Signifying nothing." As I said, I cannot shake the feeling that life signifies nothing. In other words, it feels like God is like literature: beautiful, powerful, mysterious, paradoxical, challenging...but ultimately, he is a work of fiction whom we create for amusement and comfort, because if there is no god, he is certainly worth creating in our minds. There is a reason why religion exists in every culture and every age. Either the reason is because there is a God whom people seek, or the reason is because we need to create God just to have the strength to wake up every day. I honestly don't know what the reason is anymore, I just know that it is a beautiful belief that there is a God, whether that belief is true or false.
[/quote]

You can find or create meaning in your life without believing in God. By living morally and doing worthwhile work, you can justify your existence. You don't have to live a life 'signifying nothing' if you don't believe in God. The strongest argument against belief is the existence of evil and of events that produce great human suffering--in all its forms-- crimes, wars, holocausts, earthquakes. No one has adequately answered the question as to why an all-knowing, all powerful God would permit these things to happen and for humans to have such evil proclivities. If you are not settled in your own mind regarding this, then you are bound for a lifetime of doubt.

[Era Might]

[quote name='Winchester' date='05 March 2010 - 10:20 AM' timestamp='1267802452' post='2067037']
What, exactly, do you mean by "institution"? Trying to figure that out is a serious problem in understanding what you're saying is the problem. It seems to be a repulsion to governing bodies.
[/quote]
"Governing bodies" is a good way of getting at what I mean by "institutions." I would make a distinction between government and governing bodies. I have no problem with the idea of authority, hierarchy, and government/oversight (the Bishops are [i]episkopoi[/i], overseers). But when these things become institutionalized into an organization that uses social power to protect the Gospel, then the freedom and personal nature of the Gospel is lost.

The Church institutionalizes the Gospel because the Church want to insure it. But you cannot insure the Gospel. The Gospel is a gift and an invitation to each individual person, not a social institution to be insured. The Church can only protect the faith by living it and witnessing to it, not by creating institutions that guard it with social power and use it to protect that social power. The early Christians gave their lives as martyrs, which is the only way to ensure the Gospel (which is ironic, seeing as martyrdom is the ultimate example of letting go and not resorting to social power). Once you institutionalize the Gospel and try to protect it through social power, then you are only ensuring that the Gospel will be corrupted and forgotten.

There are a lot of ways in which the Church has institutionalized the Gospel so as to try to protect it, so it's hard to review 2,000 years of history. But the Inquisitions are one example. The faith became a social institution that the Church protected with laws and torture. An even more prevalent example is charitable institutions. The Church has taken the personal vocation to feed and clothe people (which is essential to the Gospel), and has created institutions to insure that these things are done. But the ironic thing is that by creating institutions, nobody has to do anything, because the institutions take care of it. Feeding and clothing people is about personal relationships, about encountering Christ in other people, and about them encountering Christ in you. The purpose of the Gospel is not to "get things done." Institutions try to "get things done," and that is why institutions are so inimical to the Gospel. The Gospel is about looking someone in the eyes and establishing a relationship with them, not about creating institutions to solve some social problem. You don't need the Gospel to solve social problems. In fact, when you institutionalize the Gospel, you are only going to further entrench social problems, because in that case the Church becomes another power structure that keeps the broken and corrupted social structures in place; in other words, the Church ceases to be a prophetic and eschatological witness to Christ, and instead becomes another social institution that keeps itself in existence through power. Institutions operate through earthly power. The Apostles had authority, but not power (at least not earthly power).

The institutionalization of religious life is just as corrupting as the other attempts to institutionalize the Gospel. When the religious life is institutionalized, it changes from a free and personal community of people who join together, and instead the religious life becomes an institution to be preserved. Thus, the institution has to justify and insure its own existence; when more institutions are created (schools, hospitals, charities, etc.), the religious life institutions become the foundation of those new institutions. Thus we see how the proliferation of institutions serves both to reinforce the institutions that already exist, and to justify a supposed need for more institutions.

Without institutionalization, the Church has no power. But in my opinion, so long as the Church has power, her true authority is lost. The true authority of the Church is an authority of witness to Christ.

Here is an excerpt from a book that discusses these issues with much more intellectual capacity than I have (I typed this excerpt out by hand, so you better appreciate the effort! ). In this excerpt, the author discusses the institutionalization of sin and forgiveness (the "criminalization of sin" as he calls it):

[quote]But, to return to my main theme, [Paolo] Prodi has promised me that if I can wait another seven years, he will present me with the finished manuscript of a book in which he will argue that this extraordinary criminalization of sin holds the key to understanding Western political concepts for the next 500 years. In the meantime, I can only look at chapters, but these already show how this could happen. Part of his explanation concerns the struggles over the power of investiture which took place in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Investiture is the power to name, or invest, a bishop, and the Pope and the Emperor each claimed that he was uniquely competent to do so. This period was also an epoch in the history of law during which it came to be understood that the Emperor and the Pope had separate and distinct jurisdictions, within which each was solely capable of making laws. Two courts, two juridical spheres, began to separate. And this happened just at the moment I spoke of earlier, when parishes came into existence and Europe was transformed from a landscape of hamlets into a landscape of steeples, on which clocks would soon appear. As these steeples were erected, the Church, through the Popes of the time, began to take a new approach to what today would be called pastoral care. By 1215 we find in the pronouncements of that same Fourth Council of the Lateran of which I spoke a moment ago a sentence which has, several times in my life, been important to me. It reads this way: every Christian, be they man or woman, will go once a year to their pastor and confess their sins or otherwise face the penalty of going to hell in a state of grievous sin. This codified a dramatic departure from the prevailing practice, up to this time, of public confession and penance. Another new law made it an extraordinary misbehaviour for the priest to speak about what he heard in confession. It is remarkable to me as someone who is interested in the university and its procedures that the implications of these new laws have never become a major issue of historical studies. One significant feature of this sentence is that it distinguishes women from men, rather than simply addressing every Christian, and this gives women a new recognition in law. It also establishes the pastor as somebody who, in secret, judges or takes a juridical position in front of each Christian male or female. This makes the forgiveness of sin, in an entirely new way, a juridical act -- a juridical act organized on a model or hierarchy which reaches down from the steeple into the hearts of the people, and therefore creates a court structure far beyond what any emperor could ever have even thought of creating. This becomes even clearer when you consider the idea which also emerges at this time of reserved sins, that is sins too grave for the local magistrate to deal with which had to be sent on to the higher magistrate, the bishop.

So a juridical state structure was created, and sin was made into something that could be dealt with along the lines of criminal justice. But because in confession one accuses oneself, this also involved a new concept of the [I]forum internum[/I], the inner court. If you look up the word forum in a history of law, as I did this morning, it will tell you that during this period the [I]forum ecclesiasticum[/I], the bishop or Pope’s court, and the [I]forum civile[/I], the emperor’s or lord’s court, get separated from each other. But much more significant is the fact that people begin to be taught what a court is by being told that they have to accuse themselves with true sorrow for having offended God and with a true desire for amendment. To create this sense of a [I]forum internum[/I], or conscience, is an enormous cultural achievement, though something of which I was not aware until Prodi pushed my nose into it.

As you know, I have written a book called [I]In the Vineyard of the Text[/I] in which I argued that the development of conscience is linked to the new prevalence of writing around this same time. Conscience was conceived as an inner writing, or record, and this idea was reinforced by the appearance in churches of statues of writing devils who note people’s sins, and by the image of the Last Judgment as the reading of a book in which all sins are recorded. Prodi has made me more hesitant about attributing all this to the appearance of a new kind of text. For him the primary implication of the idea of a [I]forum internum[/I] is that the law now governs what is good and bad, not what is legal and illegal. Church law became a norm, whose violation led to condemnation in hell -- a fantastic achievement and, I would argue, one of the most interesting forms of perversion of that act of liberation from the law for which the gospel stands.

I do not want to be understood here as speaking against confession. I practice it. I am only trying to indicate a crucial moment in the transformation of the impiety which I commit by betraying love, which is the meaning of sin, into a crime which can be judged in a juridical fashion within an institution. Anyone who understands what I’m saying as taking sides in current discussion about the practice of confession in the several churches which have retained it has missed the import of my argument. In fact, I consider the wise use of the confessional over the last 500 years as, by far, the most benign model of soul counseling, pastoral care, and the creation of an inner space for deep conversation, centring on my feeling of sinfulness. It is incomparably better than anything else which I’ve seen so far in my service, and I include my experience with modern psychology.

Something else that’s interesting about this requirement of annual confession is the way in which it was circumvented by the faithful. The Council had conceded that people might not want to confess to their own priest, and had therefore allowed confession to some other priest, with permission. Christians in massive numbers used this provision to avoid confessing to the pastor who lived among them. The foundation of the so-called mendicant orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, provided two enormous pools of friars, with the power of hearing confessions anywhere where they came to preach, and they became the principal confessors.

Now, to return to that pregnant sentence produced by the Fourth Lateran Council, it enjoins the duty of confession on women just as much as on men. As I’ve said, this is the first important statement of the legal equality of women with men. This equality is also reflected in the Council’s new definition of marriage as a contract which is entered freely and knowingly by a man and a woman, rather than being dictated by their families or their milieu, and which constitutes a legal reality with standing in heaven. This definition is simultaneously a statement about individuality, about the coming into existence of conscience, and about the equal legal standing of man and woman.

I once had the change to discuss this point with Michel Foucault, who was then working on his [I]History of Sexuality[/I]; and I suggested that, with the establishment of this legal equivalence between man and woman, in which each is put into the same box of individual with a conscience, the possibility of sex really came into existence. Until this time, gender had divided men and women into incommensurable categories. Men’s customs were different from women’s customs. Infidelities could only be judged within the context of the two genders, which together formed the people. The marriage contract put them on the same level, and, as a result, the sin of adultery became the same kind of crime for either a man or a woman without distinction.

The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 belongs to the high Middle Ages, and is one of this period’s most grandiose occasions, but it is my contention that it is also a key to understanding what happened in the early modern period, during what is called the counter-Reformation. This period begins with the Council of Trent, which sat for thirty years trying to adapt Catholic doctrine and practice to the new situation created by the appearance of competing churches, as well as by the appearance of an entirely new view of ecclesiastical power. For the first time, the bishops who were delegates to that Council, met as representatives of the Church rather than of Christianity, as had been the case ever since the early Church councils of antiquity. They sat there not only as believers but as magistrates. And they discussed the affairs of a church in which the frontier between its rules and doctrines had begun to crumble. There was no longer a clear distinction between the personal feeling of being sinful, which goes beyond the feeling of being guilty, and the feeling of guilt resulting from disobedience to Church rules. The internal forum had come into existence, and people began to feel bound by the laws of the Church. This makes it difficult to tease apart the legal and dogmatic pronouncements of that council, as its great historian Hubert Jedin has shown.

At the Council of Trent, which sat at Trento in northern Italy during the generation after Luther, the Roman Catholic Church presented itself as a [I]societas perfecta[/I], as a law-based church, whose laws were obligatory for its members in conscience. This self-understanding was reflected in the legal and philosophical thinking of the time, which had begun to portray the state in the same terms, that is as a perfect society whose citizens internalize the laws and constitution of the state as the demands of conscience. In other words, through the criminalization of sin, the basis was created for a new way of feeling citizenship as a command of my conscience. The Church laid the groundwork by abolishing, or, at least diminishing and making permeable the frontier between what is true and what is commanded; and, on this ground, the state was later able to claim an allegiance founded on conscience.

I believe there is a parallel between the argument I am making here, and the one I made earlier about the way in which the spirit of contingency led to the death of nature. In that case I asserted that the doctrine of contingency, in which the world was conceived as lying in God’s hands, would later allow the world to be taken out of God’s hands, and that, in consequence, nature would lose not only the intensity which came from its being a product of continuous creation, but also its very aliveness, its being a living womb, which had never before been doubted. And I said that you cannot really understand modern science and technology unless you see them as a perversion of the spirit of contingency. So now I would argue that, if we want to understand the idea of [I]patria[/I] of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, the idea of fatherland, the idea of mother tongue, to which I owe sacred loyalty, the idea of [I]pro patria mori[/I], that I can die for my fatherland, the idea of citizenship as something to which my conscience obligates me, then we have to understand the appearance of the internal forum in the Middle Ages.

I also want to say briefly in conclusion -- I will take up the point at greater length in our next session -- that the criminalization of sin opened Christians to new fears, a point which I have learned a lot by reading a French historian called Jean Delumeau who has made it his task to study the transformation of fear between the twelfth and the nineteenth centuries in a never-ending series of fat volumes. Through the Incarnation, as I have said, a new kind of betrayal becomes possible. The Christian is called to be faithful not to the gods, or to the city’s rules, but to a face, a person; and, consequently, the darkness he allows to enter him by breaking faith acquires a completely new taste. This is the experience of sinfulness. It is an experience of confusion in front of the infinitely good, but it always holds the possibility of sweet tears, which express sorrow and trust in forgiveness. This dimension of very personal, very intimate failure is changed through criminalization, and through the way in which forgiveness becomes a matter of legal remission. Once the sinner is obligated to seek legal remission of a crime, his sorrow and his hope in God’s mercy becomes a secondary issue. The legalization of love opens the individual to new fears. Darkness takes new shapes: the fear of demons, the fear of witches, the fear of magic. And the depth of these fears is also expressed in a new hope in science as the way of banishing this darkness. In my index cards I give this subject matter the heading “UFOs, Unidentified Flying Objects,” an anachronism obviously, and I think the phenomena that I group under this heading are almost an inevitable result of the criminalization of sin. These fears are easily exploited by politicians, and Delumeau contends that this is one of the main ways in which the power of the state is consolidated. I will return to this subject later.

--Ivan Illich, "The Rivers North of the Future," pp. 89-94
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