christ-on-a-stick

Recently I recalled a conversation I had with a friend some time ago, about the Roman Catholic Church (I'll abbreviate it as RCC here) and what I feel is an ethical issue related to being involved in it.

This friend was not particularly devout or pious by any means. Up until a few years ago, when she got re-married, she only went to church a handful of times as an adult. She essentially considered herself Catholic "by default", having been raised that way, but didn't make it a part of her life and definitely didn't make any effort to live by the RCC's teachings.

Then, a few years ago, she met, dated and married a similarly "Catholic-in-name-only" guy. About six months later they decided to have a child together (she had a daughter from a previous marriage) and so it was.

After the second daughter was born, she decided that she was going to both start going back to church, and get both children involved and raised as practicing Catholics. I was over at her house one night and we were discussing it (she knows of my experience and lack of belief). I asked her what made them decide to become active members of the church again, and raise the girls in that way. Her reply was essentially that they felt that even if they, as parents, didn't necessarily believe in or agree with all of the church's teachings, it was important and necessary for their children to learn morals and values, and that's what the church does. I countered that religion does not = morality, and that it is perfectly possible to impart morals/values/ethics to children without involving religion. This seemed to go in one ear and out the other, but I tried to at least give her something to think about.

I then thought of an analogy that I've come to think is a very valid point.

Most of us know that the RCC, as an organization, is deeply corrupt and wields its considerable power the world over to promote backward thinking and advocate teachings that are antithetical to the causes of human rights and equality. Now, much like with most any religion or denomination thereof, there are individual congregations that may be run by well-intentioned, good people, and don't "push" some of the RCC's more widely ignored doctrines (like contraception), etc. Obviously not all (or even most) priests are pedophiles, and so on and so forth.

However...by belonging to/being involved with/giving money to such a congregation, is one not in essence supporting the larger organization?

The analogy was this (relating to the issue of entrusting one's children to a group): Let's say that you find yourself in need of a daycare center for your child. You find one that seems good - it's quite similar to one you went to as a child yourself, and it seems to be run by nice people with good values that you'd like imparted to your child. Everything seems just swell.

But then, you find out that this particular daycare center is a "chain", owned by a parent company - and that parent company is notorious for a number of questionable, and some downright reprehensible, business practices. For instance, when there are reports of child molestation at a particular center, the home office often simply moves the accused employee to work at another location. When this came to light, the board of directors and executive head honchos had some big meetings about it, but in the end still refused to promise that in the case of future allegations they would immediately cooperate with law enforcement. They insisted that the matter was ultimately between the company and their employees, and they would deal with such situations as they saw fit.

You also discover that the head of the company, a really old guy, is extremely politically active - he lobbies hard and gives a great deal of money to politicians and other groups for the purpose of restricting things like stem cell research and AIDS prevention.

Etc., etc.

So - even though your local center seems so nice and innocuous, how do you feel about supporting the larger organization and helping make it successful? How do you feel about entrusting your child to employees who cannot promise you that if your child said he or she had been molested, they would immediately investigate and alert the proper authorities? How do yu feel about your money going, in part, to support causes that run contrary to what you believe?

The friend in question was caught off guard a bit by this analogy, and said that she'd never really thought about it that way. I am not certain what ever happened with their plan to re-join the church, as we lost touch, but I am interested in hearing others' thoughts on the matter. Is my argument reasonable? Agree? Disagree?

COAS

Plognark

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. It's always interesting to me that people can't make that mental connection that the church has little difference from any other profit oriented business.

Cthulhu

That's a great analogy COAS. I'll have to bookmark it for later use (if you don't mind of course) :notworthy

christ-on-a-stick

By all means!

lpetrich

As a a religion-morality connection, that reminds me of The Royal-Lie Theory of Religion.

Plato had proposed that his society's traditional religion be banned from his Republic, because it is full of bad examples, like heroes lamenting and gods laughing. In its place was to be a "royal lie", designed to "demonstrate" the legitimacy of the philosopher-rulers.

I also quote some other Greco-Roman writers, like Polybius, Livy, Strabo, and Timaeus Locrus, to that effect. Polybius:
Likewise, Livy appreciated the early Roman leader Numa Pompilius claiming to have gotten his ideas from a deity. "You see, there's this lady Egeria that I talk to every night..." And Strabo claimed that women and common people cannot be made virtuous without the help of superstition, which must also include the marvelous and the horrible to be effective.

Interestingly, a certain Timaeus Locrus proposed:
Yes, reincarnation and Karma.

Their gross sexism aside, I find their viewpoint very distasteful; it's like saying that the religion business is desirable as the opium of the people.

Chili

x

TheRealityOfMan

Ambivelant as my opinions are towards the RCC, I often think of it as a mafia crime boss. The don keeps his hands clean and gets other agents to do the crimes. For the RCC this can represent secular forces throughout history military and political. The guy at the top keeps his hands clean, but we all know he is responsible for a lot of things.

Chris Weimer

I'm not sure that the royal lie was a good example in this case. Socrates (via Plato) wanted censorship on everything negative. He then proposed that certain men be trained only in the skill of killing enemies. I mean, the whole philosopher king works for me, but some of the ideas border Orwellian dictatorships a little too closely.

reprise

When people hand over the teaching of "morals and values" to their children to any external body, I always wonder whether they aren't essentially saying that they lack confidence in their own values system (or that they simply can't be bothered teaching it to their children). What is the advantage of having someone else teach your children values in which you do not believe along with those in which you do?

christ-on-a-stick

Excellent point, reprise; I've oft wondered the same thing and haven't come up with an theories other than possible laziness on some parent's part.