How the Catholic Church Became Naughty…And Where the Real Hindrance to Reform Lies

It was an upset Pope Francis who called his cardinals and bishops naughty. At Christmastime 2014 and again in 2015 Pope Francis scolded the cardinals and bishops of the Catholic Church for their vanity, hypocrisy, back-biting, gossiping, boasting, lusting for power and control, and acting like Lords of the Manor.
The truth is that Catholic Church leaders have been naughty for centuries. What many of these supposedly holy men did would disgust you.

The book, How the Catholic Church Became Naughty…And Where the Real Hindrance to Reform Lies, is an expansion on Pope Francis’s admonition to his inner governing circle, the Vatican Curia. It traces this naughtiness from the time in the 4th century of Catholic Church History, when Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, blurred the distinction between Church and State, and gave the church leaders riches and a noble lifestyle. Over the following centuries the popes and their entourages built their basilicas and palaces and lived in imperial grandeur. Popes became nobies ruling over vast holdings and mixing religion and politics. To defend the church’s welfare, the popes donned the uniforms of generals to lead armies and seize more territories, more benefices, and more citizens to be taxed.

With the power and luxury came moral depravity, lust, intrigue, and debauchery. During the Dark Ages and the Era of the Bad Popes the papal palace experienced orgies, adultery, homosexuality, and murder. Wealthy families fought to have sons become popes, who would consecrate nephews as cardinals and bishops who in turn would sell church property, lush church jobs, high offices, and indulgences. An outrageous desecration of the message of Christ.

The Inquisition sought to solidify the Vatican’s supreme authority over its subjects. The Protestant Reformation reacted against the Vatican’s selling of indulgences, the rampant church corruption, and the bad behavior. Numerous other Christians sought church reform and split from Rome. The Age of Reason, new philosophies, wars, and many other factors weakened the Vatican’s authority.

A Vatican mindset of clericalism, arrogance, and an exaggerated self-estimation of superiority over everyone and everything strangled the church. It is blind to reform. This naughtiness survived into the 20th century with the Vatican Bank money-laundering and the sexual abuse of children scandals.

The author points out with concrete examples how outsiders, how only a priesthood that includes celibate and married priests, male and female priests with a non-clerical mindset will bring about the needed reform of the Catholic Church – not the Pope alone, nor clerics with the regressive Vatican mindset of present-day church leaders.