“If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.
(GEORGE S PATTON)
Those people who are still emotionally or religiously attached to the Roman Catholic Institution are victims of HIS – Herd Instinct Syndrome.
Any rational, thinking person can see that this institution is not of God and is not about God.
It is about money, power, sex and control.
This has been said by others for years and centuries.
But with the explosion of education for everyone, the media and the Internet the RCC, like everything else, has come under massive and intensive scrutiny.
And, has been found greatly wanting.
How can an institution that is about God:
– sexually abuse hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of children all over the world?
– imprison and torture hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of women all over the world?
– sell tens or hundreds of thousands of orphans?
– bury so many children’s bodies in secret graves or disused sewerage tanks?
– rob the poor and side with the rich?
– consign multi millions of people to lifetimes of guilt, convince them that their bodies were vile and that they were bound for eternal flames?
The answer is simple. That institution is not of God or about God.
It is a self perpetuating institution, started and continued by men and designed to mentally and morally imprison the majority and provide a minority with power, control, money and the satisfaction of their desires.
AND WHAT OF CATHOLICS THAT WANT TO PERSEVERE IN FAITH?
You will note that I used the word INSTITUTION above.
The RCC is an institution that claims to speak on God’s behalf.
But God’s Church, as Jesus reminded us is not an INSTITUTION but rather a KINGDOM – the Kingdom of God.
The late Princess Diana said she wanted to be the Queen of Hearts.
And God’s Kingdom is very much a Kingdom of the heart and hearts.
As Brother Charles de Foucauld once said: “Our religion is all about love. It’s emblem is a heart ❤️ “.
The “CHURCH” is not a building, or an institution, or about priests, bishops, cardinals and popes.
The Church is the Family of God – and every human being living and that has lived is a member of God’s Family.
Out Faith is in our hearts and minds and should direct how we live and how we treat others.
Of course, for us Christians – Followers of Christ – Scripture, especially the New Testament, is vitally important. It gives us spiritual food and guidance.
And, for those if us from the Catholic Tradition, Sacraments are also important.
One of the problems with the RCC is that the hierarchy and clergy have hijacked and usurped the Sacraments.
The will only share the Sacraments with us on certain conditions – and only if we do everything they tell us to do.
This is not right. And that is why we need a new theology of Sacraments – a theology in which a hierarchy and a clergy cannot come between God and a person seriously desiring a Sacrament.
You can most definitely be a Christian and a Catholic without the RCC institution.
I’ve done that for 36 years now and I’ve helped thousands of others to do it too.
You can be an independent Catholic.
Ok. The RCC will remove your membership card and rip it up.
But in the Kingdom of God there are no membership cards.
Your baptism gives you full membership.
And don’t forget – your granny can baptise you at the kitchen sink and that baptism is as valid- and maybe even more valid – than a baptism at a marble font – by a priest – who is God knows what in his spare time.
BISHOP PAT BUCKLEY 