Paul Traynor, Benoni – Over the past few years I have come to recognise some striking resemblances between my Church and the African National Congress.
The most significant are:
- Clinging to an identity which belongs to the past and refusing to adapt to the needs of the society in which it exists.
- Holds its power and authority in the hands of an elite few.
- Leadership values power over authority.
- A failure to listen to critics within and without their structures.
- Regards internal criticism as disloyalty and punishes or silences the offenders.
- Values collective conscience (obedience) over personal conscience (mature deliberation)
- Demands that internal disputes be kept within the “family” and imposes secrecy to achieve this.
- Tightly controls its discussion agendas.
- Refuses to be moved by voices of outsiders, seen as hostile opposition even when legitimate and patently valid.
- Insists on steering its own reform within self-appointed structures without advice from outsiders or its own membership.
- Pays strong lip-service to democracy but is seldom seen to practise it.
- Imagines that it will rule “till Jesus returns”.
This is a forum for your thoughts, opinions and questions. These, in no way reflect the position of The Southern Cross or the Catholic Church.
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