By Austin Norville ’15
THE ROUNDUP
With the resent resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and the swearing in of Pope Francis, there are myriad issues in the Catholic church needing to be addressed and fixed.
After Pope Benedict XVI resigned, many questions were raised, and many became curious to why he resigned. He was the first Pope to resign in 600 years, and the second Pope to resign overall.
These lead journalists to uncover a long history of abuse and scandals.
There has been a decrease of the number of active priests by about 30 percent since 1965, according to Catholicmoraltruth.com. I believe the Catholic Church needs to consider allowing priests to marry because that has become a major turn away for many considering becoming a priest.
Also there is the issue of women priests.
Nuns devote their lives to Christ and deserve to have the choice to reach a higher level of Holy Orders. This would increase the number of priests and strengthen the Christian church with more diverse views.
The Church is becoming more of a fiscal business than a religious organization. And greed has been an issue for hundreds of years.
Gay marriage has become a delicate international issue, especially in the United States, with strong support and opposition. Most of those who do oppose it are against gay marriage because of where the Catholic Church stands on the issue and it has created a civil rights movement.
This movement should not just be ignored
There also needs to be a greater focus on the issue of the shrinking Church. The problem is in great need of being addressed to create new programs or changes to the very foundation of the Church to fit in with modern culture.
People today have different views than the early founders of the Church, which leads to many disputes and conflicts between people of the same faith. Many accuse the Catholic Church of abuse and sin, especially those in higher positions in the Church.
The Catholic Church is a powerful organization with about 1.2 billion members. There is no reason to assume the religion is on its final days, but as time changes the Catholic Church needs to keep up with time and focus on fixing the problems that have risen in it.
