How Enlightenment Values Challenge the Claim That the Church Is a Force for Good скачать в хорошем качестве

How Enlightenment Values Challenge the Claim That the Church Is a Force for Good

This is not an argument against personal faith. It’s an argument against institutional power claiming moral immunity. In this Grow In Ten explainer, we unpack Christopher Hitchens’ most forceful case against the Catholic Church — not as a community of believers, but as a centralized authority that claims exclusive access to truth, salvation, and moral legitimacy. Hitchens begins with a clear distinction: individual believers deserve respect. Institutions that demand obedience do not. You’ll learn: • why Hitchens frames his position as an Enlightenment commitment, not an anti-religious crusade • how doctrines like extra ecclesiam nulla salus (“outside the Church there is no salvation”) justified coercion, conquest, and abuse • why the Church’s power rests on intercession — exclusive control over forgiveness, salvation, and ritual authority • how historical practices like indulgences, purgatory, and limbo monetized fear and guilt • why history is not “irrelevant” when institutions refuse structural accountability • how clerical hierarchy and enforced celibacy created conditions for systemic abuse • why secrecy, not ignorance, enabled the cover-up of child rape • how Vatican political power shaped global policy on women’s autonomy, contraception, and AIDS prevention • why moral teaching without accountability becomes cruelty — not virtue Hitchens also confronts a deeper contradiction: an institution that condemns others as “disordered” while protecting its own crimes cannot credibly lecture anyone on morality. The critique is not that religion answers human longing. It’s that no institution gets to own truth while evading responsibility. The episode closes with a radical thought experiment: what would happen if the Church renounced wealth, hierarchy, and coercive authority — and returned resources to the people and cultures it once dominated? Hitchens’ answer is stark: only then could such an institution plausibly claim moral leadership. The takeaway: Faith may be private. Conscience is personal. But when power shields itself from scrutiny, enlightenment is not arrogance — it’s a moral necessity.