The Catholic Church And Bad Popes
“Many people say that the Catholic Church cannot be the true church because it has had so many bad popes.” How to defend against such statements.
[simpleazon-image align=”left” asin=”0964261006″ locale=”us” height=”320″ src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41016gyWJrL._SL160_.jpg” width=”202″]There are many people who believe that the Catholic Church cannot be the true church founded by Jesus Christ because there is so much corruption and because of all the bad popes there have been throughout history. Now anyone who is in touch with reality will never dispute that there are problems within the Catholic Church. There have been some corrupt popes. There have been a few popes who did some really bad things. There have been sex scandals; there have been corruption. There have been all that bad stuff. This by no means is a boast but all that bad stuff is not going to go away; and you know why? It is because the Catholic Church is made up of humans and not angels. It should also be noted that throughout the history of the Church, there have been 267 popes and more than – about 99% of them – have actually been very good and holy men. It is the few like Alexander VI who gave the office a bad name.
Now it is very instructive to note that when Jesus said, “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church,” that he was not talking to an angel. And again, when Jesus gave the command to, “Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” Jesus did not issue this command to a group of angels. He was speaking to men – Peter and company; Peter who in one instance proclaimed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”; Peter who promised Jesus that he would stand by him no matter what; Peter who ran away from the scene when Jesus was arrested and a couple hours was profusely denying any knowledge of Jesus.
Make no mistake about it; the Catholic Church is run by men, men who need to go to confession just as much as anyone does; men who can and will do really stupid things at times. This is why Jesus did not leave us alone, but he left us – His Church – with the Holy Spirit to guide the Church in truth.
An important point to always remember when dealing with this topic is that there is a clear difference between the magisterial authority of the Church and the individuals who hold the office of pope. There is a clear difference the teachings of the Church and what a few individuals who held the office as pope did. The key is that the Holy Spirit has been promised to the Church primarily for the proclamation of the Gospel and for teaching. It is the Holy Spirit that has protected the Catholic Church from teaching any errors, and it is the Holy Spirit that will continue to guide the teachings of the Church. To say or to think that the Church teaches error is to either say that the Holy Spirit is not with the Church – in which case Jesus would not have kept his promise when he said, “know that I am with you always until the end of time” – or that the Holy Spirit is not a spirit of truth.
One final point on this – when you think of who Jesus is, then you may be tempted to think that he came from a flawless genealogy. Well, when you read the first chapter of Matthew’s gospel, you will see that this was not the case and that his genealogy was riddled with “colorful characters.” Take king David for instance who in one act, committed lust, adultery and murder. Yet ours was the existence Jesus Christ choose to be born into and ours the suffering he bore.
