What do "princes of the church" have to do with Jesus Christ ?

This page relates, not just to
the R. C. church's hierarchy, but to
the Orthodox, Episcopalian and maybe
to other Protestant hierarchies as well.

According to both Matthew 8 and Luke 9, when someone said to Him, "I will follow You wherever You go",  Jesus responded that anyone planning to follow him had better be ready to live a tough life, i.e

        "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."
And these are the instructions which Jesus left for those who would take over the leadership of his new movement after his impending departure :

"They (the lawfully established clergy of his time) preach but do not practice.  They pile up back-breaking burdens and lay them on other men's shoulders -- yet they themselves will not so much as raise a finger to move them.  Their whole lives are planned with an eye to effect.  They increase the size of their prayer books and lengthen the tassels of their robes; they love seats of honor at public functions and front places and to have men call them "rabbi" or "teacher". 
        As for yourselves, don't you ever be called "rabbi"  -- you only have one teacher, and all of you are brother of one another.  And don't call any human being "father"  -- for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.  And you must not let people call you "leaders"  -- for you have only one leader, the Anointed One (Christ).  The only "superior" among you is the one who serves the others.  For, every man who promotes himself will be humbled, and every man who learns to be humble will find promotion.
        But alas for you, you scribes and Pharisees, play actors (hypocrites) that you are!  You lock the doors of the kingdom of Heaven in men's faces.  You will not go inside yourselves, and neither will you allow others to enter."   (Matt. Ch. 23)
( See CatholicArrogance.Org/CallNoManFather.html )
        For the first three centuries, churchmen may have followed Jesus' instructions. But something really dramatic happened in the early 300's. The Roman Catholic Church's version is that the pagan emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity, two centuries of persecution of Christians were finally ended, and everybody lived happily ever after.
        But who really converted whom? After this "conversion", when the church's leading clergy were invited to rub elbows with the rich and the powerful, many of them developed a lust for pomp, wealth and power that they were never able to kick, (and their church eventually did more persecution unto others as had been done to them! )

"Do you wish to honour the body of Christ? Do not ignore him when he is naked. Do not pay him homage in the temple clad in silk, only then to neglect him outside where he is cold and ill-clad. He who said: "This is my body" is the same who said: "You saw me hungry and you gave me no food", and "Whatever you did to the least of my brothers you did also to me"... What good is it if the Eucharistic table is overloaded with golden chalices when your brother is dying of hunger? Start by satisfying his hunger and then with what is left you may adorn the altar as well."
    That same "Doctor of the Church" also said :   "The road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops."

The source for the following section (until my commentary thereafter) is an out-standing study which I found in PDF form at http://www.awrsipe.com/Burke/TheCostofLookingGood2007.pdf (since updated), but I think that I have improved its format considerably and added a good deal of content before and after it.

      Still another relic of the heyday of European royalty, is Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn, pictured here, a man whose fame rests on this story:

"A Jackson County grand jury has indicted Bishop Robert Finn and the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph on misdemeanor charges of failure to report child abuse. The charges make Finn — leader of the 134,000-member diocese — the highest-ranking Catholic official in the nation to ever face criminal prosecution in a child sexual abuse case."
        It took three years and a new, more reform-minded pope, Francis, but Finn was finally forced to resign in April, 2015, one of the few Catholic bishops to have suffered that fate over the pedophilia scandals.

D. R. Dubuque's commentary :

Here's Timothy Dolan, whom the Pope made Cardinal Archbishop
of New York in 2011 and the U.S. bishops then chose
as their official "leader of the band".

"All power tends to corrupt;
absolute power corrupts absolutely."

had to do with the power of clergy? It was addressed in a letter by one of the England's greatest liberal Catholic thinkers at the time, Lord Acton, to one of England's most important churchmen, the Anglican historian Mandell Creighton, in 1887, after he had just published the first two volumes of his chief historical work, the History of the Papacy?

Anybody who thinks that in following the teaching and example of "the Vicar of Christ", the bishops of the "one, true, holy, (Roman) Catholic church" are following the teaching and example of Jesus Christ has to have several screws loose. For much more on the contrast between the actual Christ and the so-called "Vicar of Christ", see my PopesvsChrist.html.

        The Archdiocese of Orange has become the proud owner of failed Robert Schuler's ostentatious "Crystal Cathedral".  The diocese's winning bid for the property with all of its associated buildings was $57,500,000.

Senior Catholics are said to have been "mystified and astonished" when they heard that the purveyor of newspaper sex, scandal and nudity, who isn't even a Catholic, any longer, was made a "Knight Commander of St Gregory" ( along with his "trophy wife") at a ceremony in Los Angeles. Mr Murdoch appears to have been honoured purely for donating large sums of money to the church. The following year he donated $10 million to build a Catholic cathedral in Los Angeles.
        The fact that his TV stations and movie productions are some of the sleaziest, did not stop Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony from anointing him and his wife as members of the Pontifical Order of St. Gregory the Great in January, 1998. This knighthood, bestowed on behalf of the pope, is given to persons of "unblemished character" who have "promoted the interests of society, the [Catholic] Church and the Holy See [Vatican]."
        Murdoch abandoned his wife of 31 years and married one of his "dynamic, tall and gorgeous" female employees who is half his age. When a spokesman for Cardinal Mahony was asked if the knighthood honor would be revoked, he replied, "As far as I know, once you've got it, you've got it for good." [ http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/murdoch.htm. ]

"Mr James Murdoch (Rupert's son - who runs the British part of the Murdoch empire) was among major donors who were invited to personally greet Pope Benedict after a special mass at Westminster Cathedral during the pontiff's 2010 visit to England. It is believed that the Murdoch family paid a contribution towards the Papal visit of around £100,000." (about $160,000)

The definition of the word "Cathedral" from a Catholic website:
"Cathedral: a Church with a special chair"

"A Cathedral is the center of the life of the local Church. The very word "cathedral" in Latin or Greek, means "chair." From the cathedra, the chair or the seat, the Bishop teaches, sanctifies, and guides the people of God, the church. From the cathedral, the church with the bishop's chair, the Bishop oversees and safeguards the life of the Catholic people of a particular diocese.
        Since the early Christian centuries, while seated in their chairs and facing their people, the bishops have preached the gospel of Christ to them. Respect for the chair, the cathedra, has always signified respect for the bishop and for his sanctifying and governing role, for his role as leader and witness to Christ the Good Shepherd."
[http://catholicdoors.com/faq/qu167.htm]

        The prices for some cathedral furnishings have also caused consternation.

$ 5 million was budgeted for the altar,

the main bronze doors cost $3 million,

$ 1 million for the tabernacle.

$ 2 million budgeted for the wooden ambo (lectern)

$ 1 million budgeted for the cathedra (bishop's chair),

$ 250,000 for the presider's chair,

$ 250,000 for each deacon's chair, and

$ 150,000 for each visiting bishops' chair,

pews cost an average of $50,000 each.

the cantor's stand cost $ 100,000.

bronze chandelier / speaker cost $ 150,000.

    The great costs incurred in its construction and Mahony's long efforts to get it built led critics to dub it "the Taj Mahony".

 

R.C. prelates in all their glory :

a Pope Praying for the Poor, from his golden throne

Pompous Cardinal Raymond Burke

Pompous Bishop Edward J. Slattery of Tulsa, Oklahoma,
at National Catholic Shrine in D.C.

Pompous Archbishop Jose Palma|

Pompous Cardinal Rode of Slovenia

Another example

Here's a great article about this ultra-conservative and most fashionable of "princes of the church" : Cardinal Raymond Burke somehow blames 'feminized' church for sexual abuse crisis

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When Adolf Hitler swallowed formerly proud and independent Austria into his "Third Reich" in 1938 without a single shot being fired, this glorious "prince of the Church" was in the front lines to welcome this Roman Catholic subject of his with open arms.

How could anyone doubt that the "Supreme Pontiffs" who were carried around in this sumptuous carriage, were the authentic representatives of Jesus of Nazareth, who (according to Matthew and Luke) said of his own life style : "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."         John the Baptist explained that in order to be saved, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise" (Luke 3:11), So why have Jesus Christ's self-proclaimed "vicars" built themselves a humble abode of 11,000 (as in "thousand") rooms? Now, how about we take a break from reading and listen to the great song, White Men In Black Dresses, by the delightful folk singer . . .   See www.CatholicArrogance.Org/VaticanPalace.html & www.CatholicArrogance.Org/OneTrueChurch.html & CatholicArrogance.Org. For an eloquent Catholic layman's view of today's U.S. Catholic Church, see The Church That Forgot Christ, by the famous writer, Jimmy Breslin.

[ licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 ]
        The Eastern Rite ("quasi-Orthodox") branch of the Catholic Church may be as bad as the Western branch of Catholicism:

The "episcopal extravagance" featured
on this page is just part of the R. C.
Church's many problems,
albeit an important part.
Click on the following to see The BIG PICTURE !

Click on this banner to see
the whole picture!

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If ever you are moved to critique,
support, or enlighten me,
here's the way to do it :

David@CatholicArrogance.Org