Can anyone explain to me the connection between the pope et al and the life of Jesus Christ.?
The early Christians believed that all members of the Church should forsake wordly goods and live a life of poverty and service to others. Ordained Catholics and other Christians still take this vow but there are many aspects of the Catholic Church in particular which have no connection with the teachings of Jesus, including celibacy, the belief in a ‘just war’, the use of Latin as an official language, the accumulation of wealth, the suppression of most of the Gospels from public view, the existence of a Church hierarchy to mediate between the individual and God, the ‘concordat’ (agreement) between the Catholic Church in Nazi Germany and Hitler, and the support of many of the Catholic hierarchy (but not necessarily its lay people or priests) for other fascist regimes. What Jesus taught and did (or at any rate, what we read in the New Testament about it) and what the Church teaches and does are not necessarily the same.
