Cont'd>
We cannot roll back to clock, nor can the Church be 'reformed' overnight, but it must be certain that the Church has to undertake comprehensive reform without delay - or risk very real possibility of diminishing into obscurity and irrelevance.
Of course, some would contend that religion should have no real relevance anyway, and perhaps should never have. A conundrum.

'Luck' is something many have faith in (or at least believe in), yet is it real? Can some really be lucky and others unlucky; is there really such a thing as karma; is fate a reality; can everything be predestined?
I think none of this is 'real'; just wishful thinking or superstition.
Yet, some burn money as sacrifice to some elusive entity to entreat 'luck'; and some revere cows or monkeys or rats.
Belief in God should not be placed in such odd Earthly category, but it is clear that we are a strange and almost incomprehensible species.
Perhaps imagination, inventiveness, curiosity and questioning induce many (even most) to contemplate and even conjure possibilities of non-Earthly or ethereal forces or influences on life's direction.

Only one thing may be certain: Man's Hierarchies can only ever be far less perfect than the best of possible conceptions.

Dear Yuyutsu,

>>such an inference would mean that the Catholic Church and many other religious institutions of the West were long past their use-by-date already the moment they began<<

No, such an inference would only mean that if God did not exist the Church would have long ceased to be an essential and unavoidable component of Western (I concede, I did not make this explicit) culture. Something like: although my father (not a mathematician) was “an essential and unavoidable component” of my mathematical education, he ceased to be that as soon as I started to become a professional mathematician.

This does not imply that ALL those who do not believe in God admit that the Church was necessary for the rise of what now we know as the post-Enlightenment, West with its human rights, scientific and technological achievements (medieval universities, hospitals, philosophers etc) but I presume that SOME, especially historians, nevertheless do - as, of course, practically all Christians.

And, of course, this inference says nothing about how the Church, is, could or should be seen by those who believe in God.

Dear George,

Thank you very much for your explanation.

I think that diminishing the importance of the church to some harbinger of the Western post-Enlightenment, or any other social role for that matter, is lamentable.

A church should call itself successful to the extent it brings as many people as closer to God as possible - that it can do whether or not God, as understood by the Abrahamic religions, exists: even if he doesn't, still teachings of the church can (and I believe do) inspire people to seek God and stay away from sin.

Dear Yuyutsu,

>>I think that diminishing the importance of the church to some harbinger of the Western post-Enlightenment, or any other social role for that matter, is lamentable.<<
I agree, although my post was not about what is or is not lamentable, or about when “a Church” should call itself successful, but about how I thought some atheists could view the role of the Catholic Church.

>> even if (God) doesn't (exist), still teachings of the church can (and I believe do) inspire people to seek God and stay away from sin.<<
I concede this, namely that the Church could also play a merely placebo role, and perhaps some atheists will agree with this. However, I am afraid, not all, otherwise we would not have many of these controversies.

Dear George,

While some atheists may view the religious process as placebo, I consider it real and appreciate the role of the church in promoting religion.

Existence, including of God or gods, is the realm of science, but is irrelevant to religion: while many atheists are obsessed about it, existence (thus science) says nothing about neither morality and values nor about the ultimate reality, thus the question whether God exists (either as understood by the Abrahamic religions or otherwise) should be of no interest to religious people and we should not allow ourselves to be side-tracked by it.

Dear Yuyutsu,

>>Existence, including of God or gods, is the realm of science<<
Well, as mentioned in another post, we have apparently different understandings of the word “existence” (unless you want to endorse Richard Dawkins, who, I think, would agree with this statement).