Dee, Manuel Jr. S.

Misconceptions about the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is perhaps one of the oldest and largest religious institution in the
entire world. Its traditions trace its origins from thousands of years of rich history and culture.
With the rise of Western Civilization owing much to the religious entity, few could dispute the
tremendous role it played to the former’s philosophy, arts, and politics. This was in part, due to
the Christianization of the Roman Empire and its domination of the entire European continent,
braving the threat of other religions.

Moreover, the Church continues to take on a huge part in the lives of countless peoples
from near to distant lands. It persists even in these changing times where issues such as hunger,
poverty, and disease continue to plague the world, with the Catholic Church contributing much
to help solve or otherwise alleviate such problems. Therefore, the Church serves as a rallying
force in the fight for justice and charity for the weak and the destitute consistently throughout the
years. This the Church has continued to live up to for much of its existence.

However, it must also be pointed that though much has been done by the Roman Catholic
Church, there also lay, as all institutions with extremely deep and long histories, misconceptions
which counterbalance the tremendous work it has rendered to the world. These misconceptions
could very well be the basis for much of the misunderstanding between the Church and a myriad
of entities and institutions, misunderstanding which prove to be the focal point for countless
times of conflict between it and the different groups of varying beliefs and ideologies. Even
more, such deficiencies in the articulation of what is and is not the Catholic Church will impede
the Church’s progress towards not only in its religious goals but also in its capability to bridge
relationships between other groups with the same holistic agendas but with differences in
ideologies and/or principles. Given that the Church is left to face this brave new world, it has to
give clarity to these misconceptions or, at the very least, should it prove not to be one, the
Church must be able to reform itself.
 One such misconception was that the Catholic Church discourages the reading of the
Bible, favoring only the clergy to read and to interpret the sacred texts. This view is of an
extremely outdated outlook of the institution as the Church has, since after the Reformation,
staunchly advocated for all believers to read the Bible. This furthermore cannot come to be
without the printing of the Bible in the common tongue of many European countries during the
Age of Enlightenment of which, vast amounts of Bibles translated from the Latin texts provided
the people with the ability to read and understand the book. Hence, as provided, the accusation
that the Church, in its current form, does not encourage its people to read the Bible is unfounded.

Further, there persists a misconstrued paradigm in the Catholic Church, in that only its
members shall reap the gift of salvation. This stands contrary to the Interreligious dialogues of
the Catholic Church which for the past century has been going on in full swing. For years, the
Church has worked hard to improve its relations with non-Christian groups and strove to build
cooperation with these religions regardless of their teachings being contrary to what the Church
perceives as truth.

This issue thus, is greatly encapsulated by the words of Mark Twain, which states, “The
trouble with the world is not that people know too little; it’s that they know so many things that
just aren’t so. The Catholic Church is indeed a monolithic institution, and though many may
have engorged upon themselves such a vainglorious task of “deconstructing” the Church, not all
are as reasonable as they may think they are. Indeed criticism is healthy for any institution yet if
these criticisms are not less than mere superstitious claims filled with unfounded beliefs formed
from ignorant minds, then such criticisms are useless at the very least.