***If that were even remotely true, how do you explain Swaggart and Baker and Roberts and Osteen and Hagee and....
...hundreds of Catholic priests...
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Any institution run by men who are given absolute authority WILL fall. That is not just Biblical, that has been known since pre-Christ times. And it includes churches.***
That is why we consider the Catholic (including Orthodox) Churches to be apart from this statement. They are not given absolutely authority. The Pope, for instance, is considered the steward; he does not have absolutely authority.
***When an institution becomes more important than the people whom it serves, when it becomes your master, then it has become corrupt. This is the fundamental point of Luther; the Catholic Church at that time existed not for the benefit of the Christians, but for the benefit of the priesthood. That lesson, alas, still has not been learned.***
Well, not by most of the people that consider themselves followers or those who consider themselves influenced by Luther.
Some of those in Germany in the Church were corrupt; they were rooted out. Did Luther contribute to it? Certainly, he did. But, given the damage that he has caused to Christianity, was it worth the evil he did?
Yet the Pope can speak ex cathedra where his word is literally law, and cannot be questioned. No absolute authority there! And that is one of the biggest contentions between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches - the absolute infallibility of the Pope when he speaks ex cathedra.
In this case, I believe the Protestant and Orthodox churches get it right - NO MAN has authority to speak without error, without question. It's not Biblical, and it has led - and will lead again - to evil being ensconced in the Church.
Some of those in Germany in the Church were corrupt; they were rooted out.
And the other parts of Catholicism? Spain, Italy, France, all were blameless and pure? Just those evil Germans? The selling of indulgences, the purchase of bishoprics, the graft and corruption certainly didn't stem from Rome... Wait, isn't a major part of this thread how bishops must be approved by other bishops of their higher ups (like cardinals, or the Pope)?
To try to insinuate that the Vatican was blissfully unaware of hundreds of years of corruption is simply not a tenable position.
Did Luther contribute to it? Certainly, he did. But, given the damage that he has caused to Christianity, was it worth the evil he did?
In fact, I think it is the arrogance and willful unrepentance of the Catholic Church that has continued hundreds of years of evil. Look at the loathing of your own Church to own up to its complicity in the sexual abuse of thousands of children.
My own church - the very place I worship - had a pastor 10 years ago who was caught in adultery. Rather than shuffle him off to another church to offend again, he was called out, confronted (as we are told to do in Acts), stripped of his commission (defrocked), and until he completed a restoration process was barred from being a member of any church in our denomination.
That's how you deal with evil; you don't simply say "it was over there" and go about your merry, hypocritical ways...
But what do I know, I'm just an illegitimate Christian, now apparently a bastard child of evil, too!