Outdated Beliefs and Traditions of the Catholic Church - Research Paper Example

?Introduction The Catholic Church is outmoded for today’s society for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons why is that gay rights are increasingly becoming to the fore, and same sex marriage is the last bastion of civil rights, the last great civil rights struggle. The Church’s opposition to same sex marriage will be clearly seen as being on the wrong side of history, akin to the opposition to interracial marriage earlier in the last century. The Church’s ban on contraceptives is unrealistic, and could be extremely harmful if actually followed, for a variety of reasons. And the Church’s cover-up of perverted priests who rape and molest young children is evil and has no place in today’s world. For all of these reasons, the Catholic Church, and the Church’s teachings, does not have a realistic place in today’s society, except for the teachings which are aligned with Jesus, which are based on loving and respecting one another. Discussion The Catholic Church is outmoded in today’s society because of their firm opposition to gay marriage. For instance, a Catholic School teacher was fired in Minnesota, simply because she believed in same-sex marriage (Sobel, 2012). The opposition to homosexual acts is rooted in The Bible, Leviticus 20:13 is the scripture upon which religious institutions base their opposition to homosexuality in general, and same-sex marriage in particular, for this passage states that a man who lies with another man is committing an abomination. However, to be consistent in their religious teachings, the Catholic Church must abide by all of the scriptures in this Book, or none at all. If one scripture can be said to be irrelevant, or not apply, because the scripture was only referring to ancient times, then the same must be said for all of the Biblical passages. Biblical passages must not be sorted through and religions cannot pick and choose which scripture to enforce, and which ones to ignore. Therefore, some Biblical passages must be illuminated to show the inconsistency of using the Leviticus passage to justify The Catholic Church’s discriminatory response to homosexuals and gay marriage. The most obvious example of an outmoded scripture is Exodus 35:2, which states that the seventh day must be kept holy, and a day to worship the lord, and whoever works on this day shall be put to death. There is not a religious institution in the world, presumably, who follows this edict, and imagine the society that would. Doctors, fire fighters, emergency workers – none of these individuals would be allowed to work if this Biblical passage would not be followed. Therefore, one better not have a heart attack on a Sunday, one better not accidentally set their house on fire on that day, one better not be a victim of a crime on that day, and one better not get into an accident on this day, because nobody should be allowed to work. The doctors who care for the sick, the firefighters who put out fires, and the police who catch criminals on Sunday should all be put to death for violating the edict regarding the Sabbath. Ridiculous? Well, as noted above, either all scriptures are taken literally or none of them are. If this scripture regarding the Sabbath cannot be taken literally, or dismissed as being antiquated, then so must the scripture regarding the two men who lie with one another. Moreover, the Catholic Church’s discriminatory stance against same-sex marriage has led to another situation where individuals are treated as other or less-than, and not allowed to marry a person of their choice, just because the Catholic Church and other churches teach that this is wrong. This essentially takes the nation back to the days before Loving v. Virginia, 388 US 1 (1967), which is the United States Supreme Court case which stated that anti-miscegenation statutes are an unconstitutional restriction on the freedom to marry. Before this case, states had laws on the books making interracial fornicating a crime, along with miscegenation. The arguments against miscegenation were that such marriages would lead to other marriages, such as incestual marriages and pedophiliac marriages. Another argument was that God forbade such marriages, because He put different races on different continents, therefore He never meant for races to intermingle (Cahill, 2004). Moreover, some people stated that anti-miscegenation laws were needed to keep the white race pure (Todd, 2007). Slippery slope arguments, Biblical arguments and pure discriminatory arguments were used to justify anti-miscegenation statutes before 1967, and these same arguments are being used to ban same-sex marriage. When will society, and the Catholic Church, ever learn? Another major way that the Catholic Church is out of step with today’s society is that they have a church-led ban on birth control (Talbot, 2012). There are several reasons why the Church’s ban on birth control is antiquated and irrelevant to today’s society. One of the reasons is simple economics – it costs money to properly raise a child, and, unfortunately, many of the majorly Catholic countries, such as Mexico and the Philippines, are not wealthy countries with an abundance of good-paying jobs. Therefore, in these poor countries, the couples who believe in the Church’s teachings are forced to have many children with no real means of supporting them. Even in America, which is considered to be a wealthy country, there are not an abundance of good-paying jobs, at least not jobs which would support a family of 10 children or more, which is what many couples might end up with if they do not practice birth control. In short, children require money, and there often is not proper employment for support these children, so the children will inevitably end up neglected. And, as in the scenario above, if the couple cannot afford to have many children, yet have these children because the Church bans birth control, then this couple, and all couples’ like them, would probably end up on public assistance and would be a burden to society and the resources which are available to them. The second major reason why the Catholic teaching on birth control is antiquated is that, in a country of 7 billion people and counting (Worldometers.info), population control is necessary. It is simply immoral to imagine that everybody in the world is expected to have as many children as possible, because, if that were the case, the world could conceivably reach 13 or 14 billion individuals in a few generations, and, if one thinks that resources are dwindling now, the problem would be exponentially worse in just a few years. Perhaps in the early days of the Catholic Church, when the world’s population numbered in the millions, instead of the billions, it was feasible to forego birth control. Life expectancies were considerably shorter, and infant mortality was considerably higher, so if nobody practiced birth control in those days, it was less of a problem. But consider this – according to Worldmeters.info, the world’s population did not reach one billion until 1800, which means that it took all of human history, until the year 1800, to reach the first billion. The second billion was reached 130 years later, in 1930. The third billion was reached 30 years after that, in 1959. The fourth billion was reached 15 years after that, in 1974. The fifth billion was reached 13 years after this, in 1987. The sixth billion was reached 12 years after that, in 1999. The seventh billion was reached 12 years after that, in 2011 (Worldometer.info). This population explosion was reached even though birth control is still widely used in industrial countries (according to Talbot, 2012, 99% of couples practice some sort of birth control in the United States). If the Church had its way on birth control, and every Catholic followed the Church’s teachings on birth control, the population would grow exponentially, because every one of the multitude of children the couple has would also have a multitude of children, and every one of those children would also have a brood of children, and so on. It is really not hard to imagine a world of 20 billion people at that rate or more. At that point, it also would not be hard to imagine that Mother Nature herself would correct the problem, which would mean that a pandemic might result, which would wipe out much of population, or wars, etc. – according to Harrington (2011), scientists understand that the species may only remain viable and healthy if they have not reached carrying capacity. Carrying capacity is defined as maximum population size, given the amount of food, water, and other resources available to the species (Harrington, 2011). Harrington (2011) states that when populations reach carrying capacity, wars and disease often follow, simply because the population has become unsustainable. Harrington (2011) also states that, while our population grows exponentially, our food sources grow arithmetically, which means that our food sources cannot keep up with our population growth. Our world cannot continue to grow indefinitely, and the Church’s ban on contraceptives only exacerbates the problem. Granted, the Church’s edicts could have much more of an effect if the Church’s constituents actually followed them, which Catholics in America do not, by and large, but if the Church’s constituents ever did decide to follow the Church’s ban on birth control, our population problem would become exponentially worse. Finally, the Catholic Church’s beliefs and teachings are outmoded in today’s society because it has been spectacularly been marred by the on-going cover-ups regarding child rape and molestation (Hitchens, 2010). As an institution which is supposed to be serving God, the fact that molestations and rapes have gone unreported for decades, and has been covered up the church, and, according to Christopher Hitchens, by the Holy See himself, is inexcusable. Our society does not need an institution which makes excuses for child rapists, and covers up these despicable acts, and the Catholic Church has been complicit in this for years. The Church is not serving God when it allows priests to stay in the priesthood, even though these priests are using their authority to manipulate and coerce children into sexual acts. All this is not to say that the Church is all bad and does not do good work. Of course, the teachings of Jesus, including love thy neighbor, judge not lest though be judged and turn the other cheek are all values which should be taught to our youngsters. Jesus himself was an excellent role model for all of us on how to behave in the world. If everybody followed the teachings of Christ, there would not be any problems in the world – wars would cease, people would treat one another with nothing but respect, and everybody would get along. It would be Utopia. Of course, this cannot happen realistically, but this does not negate the importance of teaching youngsters and adults the values by which Christ led his life. However, because the Church’s teachings are also marred by its antiquated stance regarding gay rights, its antiquated stance regarding contraceptives and its despicably evil stance regarding pedophilia, the Church itself, and its major teachings, are not relevant to today’s world. Conclusion The Catholic Church’s teachings are not relevant to today’s world. Gays should be entitled to equal rights, and the Church denying gays equal rights because of scripture is not rational, unless one wants to believe that one’s doctor should be put to death for saving lives on a Sunday. Its ban on contraceptives is not rational unless one wants to believe that a world with 20 billion people in it would be a good thing. And its despicable actions of looking away while children are raped and molested is evil incarnate. Despite the fact that the Church does have much to offer today’s society, in that Jesus himself has much to teach us on how to live our lives, the Church, overall, has teachings which are contrary to a just and healthy society, therefore its teachings and traditions are outmoded for the modern world. Bibliography Loving v. Virginia, 388 US 1 (1967). Cahill, Susan. Same-Sex Marriage In The United States: Focus On The Facts. New York: Lexington Books, 2004. Harrington, Bob. “Critical Mass: World Population Hits 7 Billion,” Rabble.ca 3 October 2011. 2 July 2012 < http://rabble.ca/news/2011/10/critical-mass-world-population-hits-7-billion> Hitchens, Christopher. “Pope’s Entire Career Has a Stench of Evil About It.” Slate.com. 15 March 2010. 2 July 2012. < http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2010/03/the_great_catholic_coverup.html> Sobel, Robert. “Catholic School Fires Teacher of 12 Years Because She Supports Same-Sex Marriage.” Examiner.com 3 July 2012. 5 July 2012 < http://www.examiner.com/article/catholic-school-fires-teacher-of-12-years-because-she-supports-same-sex-marriage> Talbot, Margaret. “Why Is the Catholic Church Going to Court?” The New Yorker Online 31 May 2012. 3 July 2012 < http://www.newyorker.com/ online/blogs/comment/2012/05/birth-control-and-the-catholic-church.html> Worldometers.info. 3 July 2012 < http://www.worldometers.info/> Read More