Relgion is taken from the latin words re and lingo, or to tie or bind back. Religion is something that binds us back to God after we separated ourselves.
The teachings of the Catholic Church are meant to bring us into compliance with God’s will. The author of this video falls into any number of Evangelical Protestant errors regarding what Religion is, and tries to misrepresent what it really stands for.
The great churches and monatic buildings built by the Church in ages past were not simply large beautuful buildings, but the very first free clinics, hospitals, food banks, and places where the poor could be educated. The very charters that established Monastic houses requried that the monks care for the poor. Those who have re-written history, or don’t know history accuse the Catholic Church of amassing great wealth, but don’t know that often the Catholic Church works at a defecit. The ornate windows and statuary left in Midevial Cathedrals (that which was not smashed and destroyed by Protestants, were the very books which illitarate could read, when they learned the Bible by pictures rather than words.
Monks copied books by hand, which preserved both secular and religious texts before the printing press. Gregor Mendel who discovered genetics, was a Catholic Monk, Early Medicine, and herbal medicines (before modern Chemistry) was studies and used to heal the sick by Monks. Nuns and Monks harbored the sick, dying and established the first hospital systems. Yup this is what true religion is.
To label Religion as bad, and condemned by Jesus is based on ignorance, and a misreading of the Bible. Yes Jesus exposed hypocrites, but he also sent those He cured to the Priests at the temple, following the law that required somone who was cleansed of leprosy or other illnesses be pronounced clean by the priests. He tuned over the money changers tables, but that did not stop Him from worshiping His Father in the Temple. Nor did He forbid the desciples from worshipping in the Temple, but encouraged true Relition and true religious practice. He even at the last supper observed the ritual of the Passover Seder, and explained how it not only brought those who participated in it to relive the Exodus, but how it anticipated the Cross, and would be a manner that we could all mystically stand before the cross.
It is easy to point out those who have specks in their eyes of those who call themselves Religious, but harder to admit our own sinfulness and our need to humble ourselves, to excuse ourselves from the practice of true religion and holy obedience, so we can wander making our own path, rather than to humble ourselves and follow the Church Jesus Himself founded, even when it is difficult.[/quote:3rg4defb]