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To: Salvation
Many posts calling the Catholic Church corrupt. Catholics misled (and worse words than that.) I started posting the Daily Readings because non-Catholics kept saying that Catholics didn’t read the Bible.

I noticed that too, and it irritates me probably as much as it irritates you. The Catholic Church is led by imperfect people, some of whom are deeply flawed. However, I have read the Bible, and it seems like God has almost always worked through ordinary people despite their flaws. I find that history uplifting rather than discouraging.

Lust - David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:2-17).
Pride - The disciple Jesus loved (John 21:20).
Cowardice - Peter denies Jesus three times (Matthew 26:69-75).
There's also anger, envy, greed, laziness, all in the leaders who accomplished the most, and all recurring numerous times. Jonah running from and later being angry with God, Thomas doubting, Abraham lying and saying his wife was his sister, Joseph framing his brothers for theft (to tease them?), and in countless other ways, the people in the Bible are like us. Why should we be surprised that an organization the size of the Church has many flawed members, some of whom are very deeply flawed, with some of them in leadership? Why should we be surprised that an organization of that size, with that much bureaucracy moves slowly and often awkwardly? It's still the greatest single force for good on earth (a description I might have applied to the United States long ago but not today), and I'm not even a Catholic.

Note: I have theological objections to some aspects of Catholic doctrine, but I don't see any point in debating those points on FR - or anywhere else outside my church and my family. There is corruption in the Church, just as there was in the time of Ananias and his wife Sapphira, and in my own church today. There are areas and times where the Church is misled, just as there were the many times that Jesus had to reprimand his disciples for getting things wrong as, for example, when He said, "get thee behind me" and again in my own church, which is trying to be progressive on homosexuality and other modern perspectives. We're all human and flawed, even Catholics - and even Evangelicals. And one central point in the Bible is that even flawed people can do good if they have faith and apply that faith in doing good works (which I believe will follow from true faith).

24 posted on 07/23/2013 5:32:24 PM PDT by Pollster1 ("Shall not be infringed" is unambiguous.)
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To: Pollster1

**d in my own church today.**

You are very honest. Thank you.


25 posted on 07/23/2013 5:33:50 PM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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