Should the Roman Catholic Church disappear?

Let's face it. The catholic church, facing sex, fraud and embezzlement scandals, a declining membership and a lack of priests, certainly looks like it is dying. While the church itself is admitting and correcting its ways, it seems that true reform, the type that will bring the church in to the 21st century, is not about to happen. By this I mean opening up the priesthood to women and gays, increased involvement of the laity in financial affairs, and by making celibacy a personal election.

Despite the fact that other religions, including Christian based ones are growing and don't seem to have any problems at all in finding ministers, the church is not really looking inward. My own feeling is that there is not much to offer humanity in the way of spiritual growth and direction. Instead there are messages of God's love and an emphasis on the eucharistic celebration (not a bad thing) which in part is like giving people a "quick fix". In many ways, the reduced spirituality of the standard liturgy has turned catholicism into the McChurch.

Of course you can lead horses to water but can't make them drink, but this flies in the face of the growth in other spiritual movements, and the growing segment of spiritually-oriented books sold like the million seller, The Power of Now. The gap, it seems, comes from self-inflicted damage. Consider the fact that people are searching more than ever for a way to get closer to God (whether or not they realize it or not), and the catholic church is failing to provide leadership in spiritual ministry.

The church might very well be trying to be too universal in its approach to make cultural accommodations, and at the same time having too many expectations about the faith of followers. It is not a question of lack of faith but rather the leap of faith that the church asks for that renders the message meaningless for so many people. What people really want is the spiritual experience. And other than the eucharist, which for many people has no meaning whatsoever, is probably the only spiritual experience to be had in a church.

For me, a latecomer to religion and spirituality, the value of the catholic church lies elsewhere. The first the meaning of the word "catholic" is no "follower of the roman or eastern catholic churches", but one of the universality of interpretive belief. To be catholic is not to belong to a religion but to accept the universality of spirituality itself, in all of its forms. It is not a question of the universality of the message of Christ the Savior, but really something that is inverted. This is to admit that the catholic church does not have the exclusive rights to the way of knowing the will of God, but to embrace all other paths to God. This is what it is to be catholic.

I have been thinking that the mission of expansion in the Petrine and Pauline sense is an era that is over, and now the church must move to a more spiritual vocation. This is so obvious by the number of people who call themselves "spiritual" without professing a faith according to an organized religion. The real value of the church in this regard is that there is a rich tradition of diversity and deeper spirituality within the church itself, even for lay people, but it is up to the individual movements and orders to promote themselves. Try and get some spiritual direction through a local diocese to see what I mean. They can inform you about orders and movements and send you to them, but they can't provide it themselves.

The other is that there is value in apostolic succession, in that the unbroken line of ordainment going back to the original apostles, is a stronger metaphysics than those of the "prophetic" or "messianic" flavors of Christianity. This is not meant to deny or judge negatively the prophecies that have founded other movements, as they command a very deep respect and do represent spiritual truths.