Bringing shame to Christianity around the world ..

An open letter to the Christian leaders across all traditions and beliefs ..

Man is a social animal wired through the genetic code to live with his partner from the opposite sex. On a personal volition, men and women do take an oath of abstinence (at a young age..?) to serve the Lord wholeheartedly without any worldly ruses, trappings to divert and distract their attention of service to the society. Why is it that midway the same people who have taken a voluntary oath of abstinence, flounder, stumble and get misled ? similar is their affliction to wealth, opulence and attention ..

As a person who has voluntarily taken to a worldly life, I feel it is more from pressures of society that some of the priests fall by the wayside .. In this brief writeup, I try to bring forth the argument that it is the overriding influence of materialism in our churches and our society which is the reason for this moral degradation.

Materialism is the basis of the western civilization through which the whole world is passing now. The human urge to get bigger cars, build bigger houses, get more salary, have more luxuries etc have overtaken the happiness given by the simple pleasures of our lives.

Cutting short the argument and the writing, among the many reasons the author feels is responsible for the moral turpitude, the overriding factor is the influence of arrogant and conceited materialism in the church over the humble spiritualism. As believers we the laymen are responsible for this sad state of affairs in the church. In our urge to help the church, we bring more and more avenues of dirty wealth accumulation by way of bigger and bigger churches and buildings and avenues of displaying opulence which trap the clergy and prevent them from serving the society.

The urge of modern day churches, more so from the traditional Catholic and Orthodox faiths, to acquire more material wealth in the form of real estate by way of bigger churches, commercial buildings for rent seeking etc exposes the church' noble aims of social service and offering spiritual solace and puts it at cross purposes with those of materialism. All these happen when there are lots of needy people in the church as also from other sections of society who are in  need of help, financial or material.

The urge of materialism exposes the priests to more and more avenues of pleasure seeking, arrogance, conceit, luxury and entrapment by way of uncontrolled release of sexual urges, all against the promise on which they have donned the white robes of penance, suffering and service to society.

Church leaders and administrators time and again forget the truth that believers flock to the church not because of the size of the church, the size of the cross or attraction of material wealth but because of the spiritual serenity and tranquility offered by the age old traditions of prayer, worship, service and tolerance. 

It is very painful to see these priests, once benevolent, kind-hearted, humanitarian, altruistic social leaders over time, succumb to the wily, deceptive ploy of opulence and uncontrolled sexual urges initiated by the laymen, the public.

In spite of Pope Francis being the most pious, humble and simplest of all global religious leaders, we know that the Catholic Church is the biggest spiritual business organisation in the world with 1200 million clients, real estate interests and establishments all over the world (though crumbling in the western world). 

To bring Christianity back to the days of service and of being a helping hand of assistance to the needy, distraught, suffering in society, let us give up the materialistic urge. Let us not worry more about the size of our churches, buildings and the luxury in our churches as much as our worries about the size of the serving bowl to the hungry and needy and the serving mentality of the people. Let us be more worried about the quality of our service to the needy in society .. 

When we start being of service to society, we shall elevate ourselves to heights of eternal peace, harmony and spiritual attainment no wealth and material riches can bring, making ourselves more worthy to live peacefully and selflessly on this 4600 million year old planet in peace with all other living beings.

george..