Government Corruption In The Roman Catholic Church

The Progress movement or as many refer to as the Progressive era, was a time frame where Americans joined in varying groups to advocate reform across the United States. To elaborate, Progressives believed in widespread change for child labor, industrialization, government, racial reform, and women’s rights. Countless stories of corruption in these areas were brought to light in the Progressive era mostly due to the published writings of Muckrakers. Muckrakers, were journalists who wrote for popular magazines that attempted to expose corrupt political activities from their investigative journalism. Furthermore, I will discuss and compare these groups and their attempts for changes in the rights of child labor, women, acknowledgment of corrupt government practices, racial relations, and industrialization reform.

The topic of this paper is The Church Committee. When I first got the topic I was not sure what it was, but after I researched it I was very surprised. The Church Committee Report consists of 14 public reports. They were written in 1976 and 1975 when recommendations for reform were debated in congress and some cases were carried out. The reports contain information on the formation, operation, and the abuse of the US intelligence agencies. The six books covered committee writings on various topic investigated. There are seven volumes which contains public hearings and exhibits.

Rulers opposed papal power because the canon laws that restricted things the rulers were allowed to do with churches within their kingdom. They would have to get approval from the pope before they did certain things. This forced them to have to make compromises where secular and religious claims coincide.

One of the issues I am most passionate about is that of money in American politics. Increasing campaign costs, coupled with a decrease in the number of donors contributing to those campaigns, is a disturbing trend which has caused many to feel the need to question the state of our democracy—myself included. The problem of mainstream political corruption and legalized bribery is one that I was made aware of three years ago, and has since become one of the things keeping me up at night most often.

Opportunistic corruption is a longstanding function of religion, which has become permanently embedded within the various sects of Christianity. Throughout the entirety of its existence, Christianity has preached ultimate obedience and submission. These teachings are perpetually wielded by the elite class of people as a weapon of authority and dominance over the lower-class. In each era since the initial manifestation of Christianity, those who hold a position of power have used the religion to make social, political, and economic advancements, while maintaining a class structure and social order that is beneficial only to them. However noble its intentions may have begun, over the course of centuries Christianity has amounted to the quintessential

Someone who is abusing the power that is given to him or her defines corruption, however, the word in its self is more than a simple idea; it is an intricate network. Since people’s views about ethical and moral behavior affect the way corruption is examined, the word has a slightly different meaning to each person. Additionally, misconduct across various societies is viewed differently due to social and cultural borders. The criminal justice system has had many instances where corruption had affected the outcome of a case and has inserted itself into the legal process.

Church a place many people go on Sunday mornings. A place to worship in the Lord and Savior or whichever God the individual believes in. Some individuals believe that church can only be held in the church building. When in reality it can be held anywhere for example the bedroom or a field. A thing that has been noticed is there are many types of people who go that fit in with a certain group. The types include everyone from the screaming child to the strict churchgoers and everything in between. Church may be a good place to go but it is believed that the churches today are corrupt.

The word power is a term that has various different meanings philosophically, socially, religiously, etc., which is why it is crucial to define it before discussing the Boston Catholic Church’s power. Power is defined in various ways, but the definition that is utilized in this essay is when “an individual or institution [has] the ability to achieve something, whether by right or by control or influence. [It] is the ability to mobilize economic, social, or political forces in order to achieve a result.” It is also important to understand power in the terms of effect and affect. Some may argue that in order for something to have power, the institution or person must have the ability to both effect and affect, affect meaning to have an

Corruption in the Catholic Church was real; the Church has always had a strong present in Mexico since the beginnings. For instance, those in the strong circle of the Church who are not part of the clergy have always been men of power who hold swayed over the government. They have passed laws that benefit the Church, such as the example I pointed out before of Title 1. Precisely, for this reason, was why the Mexican liberals hated the clergy. The main problem and reason why the anti-clerical liberals wanted to remove the clergy in Government was “Fueros”, which means corporate immunities. For the Church, corporate immunities meant that if there was a transgression in the clerical power they were subjected to a different form of justice than the Mexican people. The Liberals saw it as the highest form a corruption because basically those part of the clergy circle who were men of power could get away with corruption. Laws like the example that was given were what ultimately what triggered the anti-clerical liberals to fight back, and that is why by 1861 when Benito Juarez re-established the Mexican government. Once Benito Juarez establishes the Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1857, the Catholic Church was slowly starting to lose the control it had over the Government.

There are few nation-states that one could point to as being truly “corruption-free” (Denmark hosts the most corruption-free gov’t according to Transparency International’s 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index). However, this is a trait that holds back the growth of the whole of society, weakening the disadvantaged and emboldening the powerful. As Transparency International goes on to state:

When the Hebrew peoples lost everything and entered into captivity to Babylon, they were a lost and floundering nation. “After the days of Solomon, the history of Israel was a story of increasing apostasy and judgement” (Clowney, 2013, p. 185). Despite their breaking of the covenants, and sinning against God in the worst ways, God did not abandoned them. He was very unhappy, and sent many prophets to speak His words to try to bring them back into relationship with Him, then God sent judgements down upon them. However, through these judgements, He kept to His promise to Abraham to ultimately bless the nations of Israel. (Clowney, 2013, p. 193) When they were allowed by Cyrus to return to Jerusalem (Arnold & Beyer, 2008, p. 58), with permission

As one knows today, there are many Churches around the whole world. Although there are many today, back in the 1500’s, there was only one Church, and that is the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church was a corrupt church back at the time but no one really knew about it. One reason is because peasants and other lower-class people didn’t understand Latin so they couldn’t read the Bible except for the priests. This gave the pope and the whole church administration an idea to get huge wealth. They used relics,sacred items, to their advantage to give false hope to people, gave indulgences, a ticket to heaven, for money, and with this money the Catholic Church grew more powerful than the king. Then a man named Martin Luther started practicing the

During 16th century Europe, there was a major movement that came to be called the Protestant Reformation due to the many changes it invoked from the eager citizens of Europe unsatisfied by the current Catholic church. This movement challenged the Catholic church’s corrupt practices and policies that the leaders of the church were using to abuse its followers. Many historians have marked this time of reformation as the beginning of the modern era.

Political corruption has existed throughout the ages. It believed to be most prominent in positions of power, because of the role money plays in getting people power. However, over the centuries, corruption has changed so much so as to not match a particular definition of corruption, perpetually growing deceptively harder to find (Ebbe).

Corruption is a complex political, social, and economic anomaly that negatively affects developing and developed countries. It weakens democratic institutions, holds economic development, widening the rich-poor gap and certainly leads to governmental instability. The World Bank definition of corruption states that “…the abuse of public office for private gain”.