Democratic type of church. Presbyterian / Calvinist churches allow for faster reform.
In this part, I will talk about the topic of church reform and the organizational structure of individual churches. Personally, I clearly prefer churches that are Presbyterian or Calvinist. One such church is in the Czech Republic, it is the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, and in Slovakia, the Reformed Christian Church meets this criterion. This involves the decentralized functioning of the church, and we can even talk about some democratic structure within such a church. The Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, for example, does not even have a hierarchy, they do not have bishops, and that is very good.
And in this way, when the church functions, the reforms take place in that church much better and faster. What takes three hundred, four hundred years in the Catholic Church is basically possible immediately in these churches. The functioning of these churches is such that, in principle, something like a parish council, composed of ordinary, common, rank-and-file believers, is de facto superior and subordinate to the priest, superior to the pastor. And if the pastor were to do something bad or misbehave, they have the right, the power to dismiss him. And also, the parish council must approve the arrival of a new priest. They must, there is certainly something there – certainly something like a job interview takes place, where the pastor, or the candidate for that pastor, must answer many questions.
Furthermore, I have information from some people that the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren is, by Catholic standards, extremely liberal. Really extremely liberal. A Catholic Church will probably be in the same state as the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren is now in about five hundred years, after about half a millennium. The functioning of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren is something completely different. As for the Slovak version of that church, I don't know how it works there. I don't have any first-hand information. It is a church that is mainly concentrated in southern Slovakia. It is mostly for the Hungarian minority. So I can't comment on that. I don't have first-hand information, but I think that at least by many degrees, this Slovak version of the church is also more liberal. Maybe it's not as liberal as the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, but I think it's still much more liberal.
It is much better when the power of the church, or in the church community, is decentralized. Because otherwise, in those hierarchical structures, there is an abuse of power by the pastor or priest, and that is bad. And also, the pastor must listen much more sensitively to what the believers say, what they wish for, what they want. This actually prevents such an abuse of power, as is quite common in the Catholic Church. And if there is no hierarchy of bishops there, it is much, much simpler. The pastor does not have to answer to anyone.
On the contrary, the complete opposite extreme is in the Catholic Church, where even in the priestly seminaries, future priests are indoctrinated with the idea that the only and highest dogma in the Catholic Church is obedience and loyalty to the ecclesiastical superior, the bishop. This is the most important thing that can exist in the Catholic Church. This is the only thing that God wants from you within that religion – simply to be blindly obedient to the bishop. Even if you feel some injustice, even if you feel that your superior is somehow wronging you, you simply have to humbly accept it. Obedience is the highest value. Indeed, and this works really well in the Catholic Church, that perhaps some disputes in the Catholic Church can be resolved, but very simply: "whoever is superior is right, and there is no discussion."
And in this way, it is not possible to make any reforms. Because even I, as a former Catholic Christian, was in contact with several Catholic priests, and they were absolutely trembling before the authority of that bishop. It is impossible for a priest to say anything critical about the bishop. Publicly, not at all. The Catholic priest would probably be fired the next day if he said even half a crooked or half a critical word about the bishop. That doesn't exist. Even privately, when I heard some priests talk about the bishop, they were literally trembling before some authority of the bishop. Well, he is a person who is superior, who certainly has some official power, and perhaps some spiritual power, spiritual authority. Some of those Catholic priests were absolutely scared shitless of him.
And in this way, it is not possible to make any reforms, because when you want to make a reform, the bishops must also be in contact with reality, and they are certainly not in contact with reality. These are people who live in their own bubble. Any critical arguments from the church simply do not reach the bishops. They live in their own world, their own bubble, and do not consider any reforms in the church to be necessary. The Catholic Church functions like an army. Literally, the hierarchy plays an extremely strong role there.
And the only way to make any reforms in the Catholic Church, to make it at least a somewhat tolerable institution, is for the Pope to first somehow evangelize among the bishops themselves. And to somehow specifically focus the evangelization only on the bishops themselves and somehow justify it, for example, with very strong theological arguments, so that a more drastic reform could be made, for example, a more tolerant approach to LGBT people, so that it would not be considered a sin in that church (some of those relationships). Certainly, those theological arguments are very strong. For example, I have also dealt with such things, theological arguments in this area.
So it is possible, but the Pope would first have to organize some special evangelization programs, some special spiritual exercises, for example, for the bishops themselves, through some of his subordinate officials, but then the Pope would really have to be very wise. Very wise, very prudent, and in a good sense, cunning, which I do not expect at all, and certainly not from the current Pope. He is a strongly conservative Pope. But if in the future there was at least a somewhat normal Pope who would want to introduce at least some reforms in the Catholic Church, then he would have such possibilities. And subsequently, such a thing could be announced at a council.
It can be argued. Many theologians actually argue that a more accommodating approach to LGBT people is not possible. But even such a theological argument is very misleading, because the teaching of the Catholic Church has been reformed many times, changed many times, even in much, much more serious matters than the topic of LGBT. So it would certainly be possible. And it can also be done in terms of the interpretation of the Bible. This option is also available. Today, many statements from the Bible are not directly applied by the Christian church in any way. And it doesn't matter whether it's from the New or Old Testament. Even in the New Testament, there are such crazy things and such bad, or such immoral and unethical things, that the current church really does not follow. This means that such an approach could also be extended to those statements on the topic of homosexuality. It is possible.
And of course, the Catholic Church needs further reforms. For example, when I looked at the origin of the Church of the Czech Brethren, how this church developed, some of the founders, the fathers of this church, even proclaimed that religious fanaticism is something explicitly bad, something explicitly negative. But on the contrary, in the Catholic Church to this day (and that was about two hundred years ago when the Church of the Czech Brethren was founded), in the Catholic Church the exact opposite is true – to this day it is considered a greater virtue to be a greater religious fanatic than to have a more correct approach to the Lord God. In the Catholic Church, fanaticism is still considered something positive.
Tolerance towards other religions is something the Catholic Church has to catch up on. Although the Second Vatican Council hinted at a more tolerant approach on the one hand, on the other hand, it did not take hold in practice.
Likewise, huge reforms can be made in the Catholic Church in the area of cultural wars. A Pope can also declare, by an encyclical or some other official document, any cultural wars as the wrong path in the Catholic faith, as heretical, and that would also greatly benefit the Catholic Church.
I see a huge difference between the Calvinist-type churches and the hierarchical churches. Even the Protestant churches are much better off. In principle, most of the Protestant churches, including the Evangelical Church, have bishops who are elected for a predetermined period, for a certain term of office, and then the election, the elections, are repeated. This means that the democratic principle is really there, it really works, and it is possible to make some reforms in the Evangelical churches. Although the current Evangelical Church in Slovakia is extremely conservative on the one hand, if there were some more liberal sentiments in society as a whole, and also the pastors themselves, if there were some sentiments, some more liberal sentiments among them, then certainly, based on some official documents, it would not be such a problem to approve it, because there is at least partly, at least partially, a limited democratic principle, that they at least elect their bishops.
And currently, both in the Evangelical Church and in the Catholic Church, there is a sentiment that the fundamental meaning of all Christianity is cultural wars, that they have reduced faith to just this. And it is indeed true that this may make the church stronger, that perhaps the number of believers would decline much faster, people would leave the church much faster if the church did not have an enemy. Because the enemy is the fuel of Christian faith. That is simply the foundation. Christian faith simply could not function, could not exist without an enemy. Why should people be Christians if they had no one to fight against?