You could only argue that Christianity is about control if you knew nothing about Christian teaching and scriptures. Every Sunday, and many weekdays, in every Christian church, passages of scripture are read out urging the overturning of social order. The faith is based around the life and death of a guy who suffered the most extreme criminal punishment of his day and specifically ruled-out taking secular power.

Even if you argue that the institutional church has departed from the precepts of its founders, you can't deny that it still promulgates the subversive message.

You also can't deny that when you look at social welfare and human rights in this country as often as not the debate is led by people who have a Catholic background more than by those of other denominations of Christianity.

While I'm not a supporter of the Catholic Church I think Geraldine is selling the institution short.

Well, Graham Y, I am shocked and amazed. If this last post of yours is indicative of the credibility and impartiality of the OLO editing process, then something is very remiss.

>"..in every Christian church, passages of scripture are read out urging the overturning of social order."<

Messages of Christian Charity, love thy neighbour, judge not lest ..., etc, are "urging the overturning of social order"? What, for the better?
I am afraid you have a very distorted view of the fundamental tenets, lessons and teachings of the Catholic Church.

>"you can't deny that it still promulgates the subversive message."<

"Subversion" yet! Strong words - but are you sure you may not be referring to some earlier offerings of the Reverend Ian Paisley, or perhaps some IRA radical - or in what other specific context may you be offering this slander?

I have been a Catholic for 67 years and I have absolutely no idea where these strange, inflammatory and totally erroneous ideas of yours may have come from.

Words are powerful tools, and if you have some proof for your outlandish statements, please share them with us.

Fear, shame and guilt are the tools of indoctrination and are more effective at an early age, particularly when reinforced by parental trust.

A cult is always a cult, no matter how it's been marketed and will always be measured publicly by its worst aspects.

It's a difficult thing to break away from but in the end, it matters to no-one but yourself unless it impacts adversely on the lives of others.

Good luck and my best wishes with your life choices Geraldine, but who are you really trying to convince - others or yourself?

Saltpetre.

Ah come on.

Jesus was the ultimate subversive.

The problem as I see it is that in order to promulgate the message of Jesus - which tends to run counter to instinctive human behaviour - it was necessary to create a massive cranking slowly evolving institution....the type of entity that Jesus was preaching against. It's also central to the point to which Geraldine Doogue was referring in her reference to the functionality of the Catholic lay community.

Found this link which may interest you and Graham:

"The genius of the gospel lay in its power to move people away from the world of slavish, supine, blind-obedience and compulsive legalism into the freedom of the daughters and sons of God. Now that very same Gospel has been press-ganged anew into the servitude against which it originally protested and rebelled."

http://www.v2catholic.com/dtimbs/2012/2012-04-15the-people-of-God.htm

Graham Y,

Or, perhaps your contribution has just been structured in such a way as to allow for the sort of misinterpretation I may have made?

In defending the institution, and in countering claims that it pursues overt control in State affairs, your choice of terminology has, perhaps unwittingly, offered an interpretation of condemnation of that which you endeavoured to defend?

I may have been impulsive in my previous remarks, but intended no offence.

Saltpetre:

Consider injunctions to “love your enemy” and “welcome the stranger”. The social order of our world actually opposes these values but followers of Jesus are called to do so. Likewise, Jesus calls us to be free from both attachment to material wealth and domination by the drive to power, both of which are foundations of the everyday social order. In such ways the Christian faith urges, as Graham Y says above, “the overturning of the social order”.

And it is pertinent to this discussion to point out that the followers of Jesus are the Church. The people, rather than the institution, are the Body of Christ. As such it is the role of the people to expose and correct the faults of their institution—most of which are probably failures to adhere to the injunctions I have mentioned. This is what Geraldine Doogue has been getting at in her article.