The Corruption Of The Catholic Church

The beginning of this period the European countryside was broken up into large estates owned by the wealthy nobles. Most people were peasants, who worked the land for the noble owners. All parts of life centered around religion mainly the Catholic Church which was very powerful. Throughout the Renaissance, the

As the tenth century rolled about, the power of the Roman Catholic Church grew steadily stronger, the church had an argument with the normal Kingdom over who should rule supreme out of the Pope or the King, the church believed that the Pope who is the voice of God on Earth should be the ruler of the world while the peasants thought that the King should, the power struggle eventually ended with the Church coming out as the dominant force in the West. The Church passed a law that stated that everyone (mostly peasants) is forced to pay 10% of their income to the Church. The church had the ability to stop any laws that they did not like or make some new laws that benefited them, they were a very powerful group that could manipulate the peasants and knights in any way they liked, in Church there were photos of people being tortured in hell, this intensified the peoples longing for heaven and therefore extended the power and influence of the church. All Christians were expected to attend the mass and, by the 13th century, were expected to take the Eucharist at least once a year.

However, as time went on, they started doing things like selling indulgences which lessened the power of the pope and church. “Catholic Church to create a whole system of paid indulgences, a situation which contributed to the emergence of the reformation of the 16th century CE.” (Source

For example, in Document 3, it includes,"Because of the inseparable relationship between the church and politics, many of the clergy had became as corrupt as noble families paid for church offices...People were also upset by the high taxes charged by the bishops to support the Pope and his projects." This means that because of clergy wanting money, the bishops and other clergy members raised taxes to get people to pay the Pope and the other clergy. The church addressed this problem by putting it aside for later examination. The church attempted to fix the problem but it kind of got forgotten. The clergy just went on abusing their power like Nero or Caligula in the Roman Empire. The clergy kept thinking they could get away with anything just because the Pope had the power of excommunication: he had the power to not let other human's souls go to heaven and banish them from the Church. The bishop or parish priest were very important. The priest baptized you and the few people who can actually read the bible were the parish priests. They could only read it because the Bible at that time was written in Latin. That was until Martin Luther copied it into the language the others knew: a form of German. The people of the church were so important that the others paid the high taxes until they had enough of paying them so much. Then Martin Luther came along

Baron Action, a historian and moralist from England said “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”(Absolute). There has been corruption in governments and people of power all throughout time. John Edward Emmerich Dalberg Acton was the first to do research on studying human nature and history, and he discovered great men are almost always bad men (Soffer). In American Gods there is corruption throughout the rank of Gods, everyone wants to gain more power and be worshipped more.

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.

The Vatican, situated within Rome, Italy, is the capital of the Catholic faith. Lead by a Pope, who is chosen by the Cardinals when one dies or retires, is the source of leadership for Catholics around the world. It has also been a source for many conspiracy theories. Dan Brown even set his Illuminati based novel Angels and Demons in the holy city of Catholics. Many others love to have Illuminati base theories set within this important place. What people do not realize is that there is a much deeper, very real corruption going on within the walls of the sacred city.

An example is the major scandal which rocked the Catholic church. A lot of boys were

The Catholic Church was the only church around during the Middle Ages. Due to this, the catholic church had a vice like grip on medieval society, politics, and culture.

With Europe’s many problems that revolve around its spectrum of society, there grows a much bigger concern that has been causing tension in Europe dating back to the 1500’s when Martin Luther began a movement against corruption in the Roman Catholic Church, also known as the Reformation. Government corruption portrays itself as an abuse of power for individual gain and even proves to have a longer history to when the Bible incorporated laws constraining bribery. This indicates that the practice of government corruption has been repeating itself long over 3,500 years ago and that corruption is capable of going beyond bribery. An earliest example would be the rise of the

The Renaissance can be described as a time of rebirth in Europe between the fourteenth and sixteenth century, following the middle ages. It was an era of shift in the perspective of world view, and increased interest in the revival of classical values and knowledge. This renaissance came about as a reaction to the hierarchy and problems in the catholic church. Before the renaissance in the fourteenth century, the catholic church, along with the Pope, held a great amount of power in society and was at the top of the hierarchy above the state, household, and the individual. The Pope was seen as the “broker” between man and God, which was seen when individuals would go to the church to confess to God through the Pope. When issues in the Roman

no longer good representatives of the pope, they became corrupt and indulgences became a huge part

In the same way we see another corrupt pope having the same problem when pope John XXIII quoted: “Italians come to ruin most generally in three ways, women, gambling, and farming. My family chose the slowest one.” Just in saying that shows you how easily persuade and corruptible he was. Woman weren't his only downfall being pope, but other corrupted sins such as: Simony. It started when Pope John wanted a third occupation after advancing in his military position and then getting his doctorate being a lawyer. His interest in a religion based career was curious and when beginning he was put to work under Pope Boniface who was the pope of the west when the catholic church split apart making two popes: one in rome and one in Avignon. In the year

An understanding of what are this crisis repercussion in society, especially in victims, is important to find a solution for the issue. Even though the society largely has focused on finding a culprit the focus should not be to blame, which seems to be the main point of the media, the common gold is to find the solution to the problem and to avoid the child abuse to continue spreading in today's church. Despite, this situation should be a call to the Catholic Church for reflection, and to reevaluate their law and structure. What everybody wants is the children to be safe. Comparatively, although many of the allegations are up to twenty or thirty years ago, according to a chronology published in the article “Crisis in the Catholic Church”, still

Why should one man have puissance over the way we sojourn our lives? The individual that I am referring to is Pope Francis. Personally, I feel that many people confer to the Pope as a god, giving him influence over our beliefs, as well as our lifestyle choices. As Catholics we are not allowed to partake in birth control practices, have an abortion, or participate in anything related to gay marriage. These are only a few issues that are part of a long list of unmentionables that are influences of the Catholic religion and Pope Francis. This very aspect for indefatigable individuals like myself that are nonjudgmental upon others. For this reason, I am going to attack Pope Francis indirectly, and the Catholic Church directly. My inspiration for this attack came for the film The Patriot, directed by Roland Emmerich. In this film, Colonel Tavington, seeking the location of the rebels, gathered the entire town of Pembroke into the church. After much hesitation, he got the information that he wanted. Colonel Tavington locked the doors and windows of the church and burned it down. Therefore, killing the entire town. This particular style of attack was inexpensive, and with minimal effort and easily executed. According to the Gallop Research Organization, 118 million people around the world go to church on Sunday. Catholics make up 24 percent of this number, thus making it an excellent target for a vulnerable attack.