OT: Tolerance

Bear with me here, people; I'm not going all churchy on you, just venting my frustrations as a lapsed Catholic and free-thinker.

So after a pretty crummy day yesterday, I found out the bishop of my archdiocese doesn't want me being a Catholic, because I don't agree with the Church's teachings on a great many things. Specifically, I am not to take communion (the most sacred of the sacraments) of I 'publically disagree with the church's teachings' or 'commit greivous sin.' I am outraged, both at the thought of being told that thinking is bad, and that the Catholic Church has joined the increasing polarization of our society.

I am an educated person. I am also a Catholic, struggling to discover if he wants or needs his faith back. I believe in the way I was raised, in the people I was raised by. I belong to a Church that is slowly but surely hemorrhaging followers because of its willful disinterest in adapting to the needs of the faithful. I see a man disintegrating from a horrible disease, clinging to outmoded traditions, trying to dictate who I should be from the other side of the globe. And I am not to disagree. I am to follow; to never state that I believe in choice, in free will, in the inherent dynamic elements that faith requires; to set aside my inherent respect for women and gays and everyone else, and their rights; to ignore the fact that the Church preaches tolerance while remaining exclusive; to forget that my father and mother raised me to think about what I do and why I believe what I believe, even though that is the only reason I still call myself Catholic. I respectfully - and publicly - disagree.

In the past, when Christianity was an underground cult, it had to adapt to the circumstances of its environment; today, we see this happening in small missions that carry the Church's message out into the world. But the Church is a huge bureaucracy, torn by the inherent voracious commitment to keeping the old ways and the burning need to adapt to life in the 21st century. What to do - react to the times in the interest of keeping the faith alive, or accept its slow decline towards death, or await a massive religious revival which will save it?

I say that it is time the leaders accept that they must once again make faith work in people's lives by making it relevant, not forcing those who reject the mold out. Our world is a series of greys, not black-and-white -- pretending or trying to force it to be otherwise only makes the isutation worse, and costs the church more and more. Archbishop Vlazny - I, and people like me, are the future of your Church. You can accept us, and embrace the changes that will save the church, or reject us, and kill it day by day as you send us off to become Protestants, Muslims, Jews, Hindus or aetheists. Flawed as we may be, is it not your duty to call wayward sheep back to the flock, rather than send the imperfect to the slaughter?