Was the Catholic church corrupt

Answer 1

During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, some popes, bishops, and priests were corrupt and some were not. That changed for the most part with the Counter Reformation. Although the Catholic Church did not adopt Calvin's Institutes, the leaders of the council made the reforms he demanded in that book. That ended the overt corruption. Corruption will remain in any organization with human leadership.

.

Catholic Answer

The Catholic church is the Mystical Body of Christ. It is His church, it is His Body, He is the head, we are the members. By its very definition, it can not be corrupt. However, as with the parable of the weeds and the tares, God has decreed that the evil ones are to be left to be judged by Him, and by Him alone, so that there are evil and corrupt people in the church all through the ages. Nevertheless, this does not affect its holiness or purity, as that is guaranteed by Jesus who said, "Behold, I shall be with you until the end of time."

.

AnswerAs an establishment it cannot be corrupt, the same is true of government. However many of the people that were members of the church were corrupt. As is still true today.

Answer 2

Practically everyone who had an ax to grind against the Church, particularly those who revolted in the 16th century, the "protestant reformers" who thought that because there were sinful people in the Church, they should start their own. Why anyone thought that a man-made Church would be less sinful than one instituted by God is beyond me.

Answer 3

Anglican Catholic Church!

The Church in England, being the Catholic Church, the Body of Christ here on earth, can never be corrupt! As with all Churches the membership perhaps sometimes fall from grace and when you ask your question I presume you are referring to the Reformation Church in England?

Collier, who was a Catholic, non-juring bishop, in his history gives the Church a pretty good record and I feel that the Church from that time suffers unduly through partisan spirit on behalf of her enemies! Certainly the Monasteries do not support the criticism thrown at them or the Bishops and clergy. In fact my own impression is that the Church was highly thought of, it was in later years when our enemies both Roman and protestant tried to prove their case!

Roman Catholic Answer

"It is impossible that scandals should not come: but woe to him through whom they come." Luke 17:1

"In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world." John 16:33

Of course people mind that the Church is corrupt! Should they mind? Did Jesus mind? I submit that Jesus knew very well that His church was to be composed exculsively of sinners, and that it would necessarily be Church: given A, then B follows. If we are to be Christians, if we are to follow Jesus Christ in His footsteps, we must keep our eyes fixed on Him; only looking at our neighbor, our fellow sinner in the Church, to see how we can help him.

From The Latin Mass - the Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition, Vol 19, No. 3 excerpt from an article, Our Spiritual Response to Scandals and Abuses, by Peter A. Kwasniewski

"As a Dominican theologian put it with characteristic force: "Let us be clear, of course, that the people who are really welcome to the Catholic Church are the murderers, rapists, torturers, sadistic child-molesters and those who evict old people from their homes - it is for loving, welcoming, and forgiving such members that the Church exists." (Herbert McCabe, O.P., "Ash Wednesday," in God Matters {New York: Mowbray, 1987}, 243. Naturally, I do not endorse everything McCabe says, but he does have a way of putting certain truths rather bluntly, which I find helpful.) If this assertion shocks us, we ought to pause and ask why. The phenomenon of creeping self-righteousness is once again on the horizon; indeed , it never really goes away. It defined the Pharisees at the time of our Lord's earthly ministry; it defines contemporary American culture. Deep down, in spite of our differences, we are all judges looking for justice; we carry around a formidable array of stones ready to be hurled. Down deeper still, we are all sinners who thoroughly deserve condemnation. ... And deepest down, we are forgiven by the merciful Lord if we place our trust entirely in Him. That is what makes us Christians - not our righteousness over against sinners, a false boast at best; not our own enormous guilt, which is really there and has to be faced somehow; but our being love and forgiven. Jesus alone can give us the strength to face evils and overcome them. From a Lenten sermon to John Paul II and the Roman Curia, Father Rainero Cantalamess put it this way: If Christ loved the Church, in spite of the iniquities she [that is, her members] would commit, pretending to overlook them, who are we to see in the weaknesses and miseries of the church a reason not to love her and even to judge her? Precisely we, who are so full of sin? Do we not think that Jesus knew the sins of the Church better than us? Did he not know who he was dying for? Did he not know that among his disciples, one was betraying him, another denying him, and all fleeing? But he loved this real Church, not the imaginary and ideal one. He died "to make her holy and immaculate," not because she was already holy and immaculate. To Luther, who reproached him for remaining in the Catholic Church despite her "corruption," Erasmus of Rotterdam replied one day: "I endure this Church in the hope that she will improve, given that she also has to endure me in the hope that I will improve." We must all ask Christ for forgiveness for so many inconsiderate judgments and so many offense to his bride, and consequently, to him. The affirmation in the Letter to the Ephesians contains an implicit question: "Christ loved the Church; do you? (For the text, see Zenit ZE03040401, April 4, 2003) . . . but look at Jesus. For thirty years He chose to remain an unknown carpenter who did not attack the corruption of the Jewish leaders; He did not rush to begin the work of salvation for which the universe had been groaning in bondage, age after age. In His three years of public ministry, though He taught at length, yet as often as not He remained silent; and in the dramatic culmination of His redeeming work He spoke not a word, but suffered in silence.