Popes of Avignon - AHB

Papal history has been incredibly shaped by conflict. For a church that espouses the idea of universality, there sure is a lot of division. But at the same time I believe that a lot can be said for the resiliency of a structure that has successfully weathered these countless conflicts. I was reading an article recently about the incredible growth the Catholic church has experienced throughout the world. The numbers of new Church members is actually outpacing world population. While the church has fallen off in the West, many new areas in Africa and Asia are experiencing terrific growth. To me that is pretty amazing.

Anyway, what this topic really made me think about is schisms and the way that they define religious history. Of course, it is hard to think of any kind of history without the inevitable conflicts that arise (Rome vs. Carthage, the Israelites vs. Jericho, etc) but within the church there have been so many different types of conflict that it really is staggering. Often it just seems so petty, but essentially all power struggles are. And then there are so many examples of simple theological differences erupting into massive struggles.

A lot of these problems seem to stem from the unnecessary two-way influence between the church and the state. I don't know whether or not you can have a relational union between the two that doesn't end badly. I think that the political messages beamed out by church institutions often just distract from the real purpose of religion. I would be more interested in a church that knows what it's religious purpose is than one that extends that knowledge into other areas. Within the church there is a lot of fear concerning the moral weakness and depravity of the world, but is any institution more responsible for this than the church? Isn't there failure to communicate positive spiritual messages one of the main reasons for their irrelevance in modern society?