The Catholic Church history has its ups and downs. However, its teachings have remain consistent with the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.
You’re exactly right, Manny, but some prefer to find an excuse for disdain through the scandals they see either real or imagained. If one gets all hot and bothered by such scandals within Catholicism he should just consider a bit the example of the Hebrew people of the Old Testament. God choose Israel to be a holy nation, a people set apart for Himself. So how do they comport themselves as a holy people? Murder, idolatry, harlotry, adultery, you name it they did it. Yet God did not abandon them for His divine purpose was being accomplished in the midst of all the sinfulness of His still holy people.
In the scene portrayed in St. John’s Gospel where Our Lord greets the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob, what does He say to her? “Salvation is from the Jews.” These are the same Jews who did all those previously mentioned evils, and who would soon put Him to death, using their enemies to commit deicide, and “salvation is from them”! Why? They were holy people, the people chosen and set apart by God; God acted through their very sinfulness to accomplish His will.
So it is with the Catholic Church. When man was reconciled to God by and in His Son the Catholic Church, the Incarnation extended in time and place, became the means by which humanity could enter into the New Covenant in the Blood of Christ. Through the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, God dispenses the Grace (Divine Life) – especially through the sacramental life – to bring all people to Himself. The Church in its essence (Christ) is holy, but individual members can be, and often are, sinful, even dreadfully so. Yet God is always faithful and so, just as He did not abandon His Chosen (Holy) People the Jews, He will not abandon His Holy Church which is the Body of Christ, His Son, from Whom all holiness springs.
Many would prefer the company of only the holy, or at least of those who seek after a godly life, or at least are not known to have cheated on their wife, had an abortion, cheated on a test, drank too much beer the night before, or molested a child. We may frequently cringe when we consider just who it is sitting next to us in the pew; if we do this we have forgotten the parable of the wheat and the weeds – all grow up together until the time of harvest. We have also forgotten the patience of God and His desire to bring all sinners back to Himself through the Church He established.
