Much of the so-called evidence that indicts the Catholic Church is either not directed at the Church per se (after all, an individual, cleric or lay, who sins in any way is not upholding the Catholic Church’s teachings, right? It would be like saying that a person who identifies himself as a democrat but consistently votes anything BUT democratic is ‘upholding the democratic party’. I think most people would see that argument as absurd, but for some reason they’re less clearsighted about acknowledging that Catholics disregarding their Church teachings are HARDLY upholding Catholicism. . .
Or the ‘evidence’ is directed at events but viewing said events in a false way.
Let’s take the Inquisition, for example.
Either the persons calling the Church a ‘force for evil’ on the grounds of “The Inquisition and its evils” are misinformed about the Inquisition itself (many of them still think that the Church ‘murdered’ hundreds of millions of people, mostly Protestants, and tortured people for gain) or even if they do acknowledge the truth (it is complicated, as are most truths, because they exist in a complicated world), they attempt to impart 21st century knowledge onto 15th century life (the person then did not have 500 centuries of ‘tolerance’ or a fairly stable world, high levels of literacy, etc… . . we do), or they make the absurd claim that any personal wrongdoing on the part of any member of the hierarchy, regardless of its type, regardless if it is a ‘wrongdoing’ in the eyes again of the 21st century person or of the 15th century person, automatically and indelibly casts such a ‘stain’ upon the Church as to render its claim to be Christ’s church false.
So basically you have literally dozens of scenarios on which a person can ‘find fault’ with the actions of individuals ('considered to the “The Church”). Funny how the same people ranting about how the Church is a force for evil ignore the fact that the reason they are free to do so is that same Church.
Without the Church fighting the Muslim invaders during the Crusades, Europe would have fallen to the Muslims. The New World would probably not have been discovered. If it had been, its future with ‘free’ countries would have almost certainly never been achieved.
Without the Church’s work in the Inquisition, many Quislings (look it up) could have achieved a Muslim control of Spain and Portugal at the time that those countries had just opened up the New World and achieved wealth. . .the wealth would have poured into Muslim hands and once again, we’d see the subjection of the rest of Europe and the subjugation of "the Americas’ into Islamic conclaves. Again, freedom as we know it would be completely lost. And that’s speaking just for the men. Imagine the life of WOMEN under the Muslims. . .
Without the Church a couple of centuries before this, we would have no universities. (Yes, the Church which so many think is 'anti-intellectual" was responsible for universities as we know them). We would have no hospitals. We’d have poorer people and poorer soil–the monks of Europe were the ones who single-handedly sought out and carried out farming techniques and innovations which raised the standard of living and made it possible to people to farm where land had been incapable of producing. . and they did this even during periods of things like Viking invasions, where whole monasteries would be wiped out by the invaders. . .but then after the invasion, new monks would come and methodically pick up the pieces and start working to heal the land and people. . .
Yeah, that ‘nasty Church’ was responsible for things like making sure that women had the right to REFUSE to be forced into marriage. Opportunities for women to learn to read and write in convents instead of just stagnating. Offering shelter for the indigent. Caring for the insane and the lepers. Bringing the word of God to people in conditions that would appal those of us who think it ‘too much’ to have to drive our cars a couple of miles on a rainy day and would miss Mass for such inconvenience.
