NEWSFLASH!!! Catholic Church full of hypocritical sinners!

I know this is going to be a shock for many people, so you might want to sit down. Ready? OK, here it is: the Catholic Church has people who are (*gasp*) SINNERS! Yes, it’s true!

How do I know, you might ask? Well, it’s rather simple: I’m a Catholic and a sinner. Not only that, but they actually made me a priest! Yes, I know, scandalous that a sinner like me – and I am a sinner – was named a priest. Apparently, Anne Rice thinks so:

For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten …years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

You know what, maybe we should just follow her lead and bail from the Church. After all, why would we want to associate with a bunch of hypocritical sinners? In fact, let’s take it a step further:

In honor of Anne Rice, I’m never using banks again, because some people steal. (Tom Wilson via Twitter)

All sarcasm aside, sounds absurd, doesn’t it? It sounds as absurd as leaving Christianity because Christians are sinners. Yes, Christians are sinners, because all humans are sinners. We all are! Every single solitary one of us! If you think you aren’t, let’s start with the sin of pride, shall we? How about being selfish and self-centered? Yes, those are sins, and we all have to deal with them every day of our lives. We have to face sin in our lives during our time here on earth, both personally and communally.

Does this mean that people in the Church are “quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous”? Absolutely! It also means we have liars, thieves, cheats, adulterers, and all other sorts of scandalous characters who may even be the little old ladies and gentlemen who attend daily Mass at parishes throughout the world. What Anne Rice fails to see is that the Church is “a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.” Every single member of the Church, with the exception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, throughout Her 2000 years of existence has been a sinner. Does that mean the Church should have never existed? No, quite the opposite! The Church exists precisely because we are sinners in need of Jesus’ guidance and forgiveness. The Church does not exist to make us feel good or cater to our whims and fancies, but to educate us with Our Lord’s teachings, offer His forgiveness when we fail to live up to those teachings, and feed us with the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus, the Son of God. Without the Church, we poor sinners would be completely lost and wander through this world just as the Israelites wandered through the desert for 40 years.

And what about Anne Rice’s statement, ‘I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity’? By the very definition of “Christian”, you can’t follow Christ without being a Christian. The word Christian means “follower of Christ”. If you follow Christ, you are a Christian, period!

How about this idea of leaving the Church to follow Christ? I’m not going to spend the energy to refute that faulty logic, because it starts with a false premise of the Church and Christ’s purpose for establishing Her. Instead, I’ll let the Curt Jester take that one. In short, you leave the Church, you leave Christ. She claims that her conscience won’t allow her to remain in the Church. I would argue that she’s operating with a poorly formed conscience, and needs to have it properly formed through the teachings of the Church.

So, is the Church full of sinners? Yes, and we should rejoice that Christ gave us the Church to lead us through our sinful lives to His salvation!