Capricorn rules the structures that give our society form and maintain social order, and for 1500 years the most powerful social structure on our planet has been the Roman Catholic Church. With its own city, its own government and its own rules, the Church answers to no worldly leaders. In fact, for hundreds of years the Church was the supreme authority over even the most powerful of monarchs.
So the current scandal in the Catholic church is about more than pedophilia; it’s about the very question of whether or not the Church is answerable to the governments of men. Dharmaruci at Astrotabletalk has had an interesting series of articles on “Popegate.” In one recent article he writes:
This could be a terminal crisis for the Catholic Church. It is a huge issue. Rowan Williams, the head of the Anglican Church, recently commented on BBC Radio 4: “I was speaking to an Irish friend recently who was saying that it’s quite difficult in some parts of Ireland to go down the street wearing a clerical collar now. And an institution so deeply bound into the life of a society, suddenly becoming, suddenly losing all credibility – that’s not just a problem for the Church, it is a problem for everybody in Ireland.”
I am sure the same situation must be arising wherever the paedophile scandal has come out. And of course it is not just about paedophiles. It is about the whole culture that has created so many of them. They are symptoms of a deeper sickness. The Church of course does not see it like that, and to that extent I think it will not be able to adapt and survive.
DR also reminds us that, as I wrote in my own article on Pluto in Capricorn, the rebellion of Martin Luther against the Roman Church occurred back in 1517 when Pluto was in Capricorn. Pluto has a tendency to destroy the structures that are rotted and decaying so that they can be rebuilt, but humans aren’t always the smartest of creatures. The Church didn’t exactly fall in 1517, and the Protestant Reformation that followed was a bloody mess.
Today’s world is a different world entirely. It’s a world where instead of four religions there are over twenty major religions, with thousands of minor sects and cults. Whether the pope and the Catholic Church will survive the pedophilia scandal is a topic of current debate, but we might also ask if the Catholic Church will survive this round of Pluto through Capricorn.
Having been brought up in the Catholic Church with a Mother who was beaten by Nuns and scandalized by people buying divorces(annulments), I’m glad to see this great service of Pluto in Cap. The arrogance and abuse of power is endemic and I’ll be glad to see almost anything else that’s fairer!
Thanks Laurel, there’s an interesting discussion of this issue going on at the BeliefNet version of this blog. The number of people who are defending the Church is amazing to me. Some people really depend on these structures and are willing to defend them despite the corruption.
the church had a special place in this world. It has become more corrupt in a society this is extremely corrupt. The gays who have infiltrated the church to this degree have made a good job of destroying it. However, the rampant abortions, and drug and alcohol use as well as corrupt government and other religions have all been part of the destruction of the human spirit. Unfortunately, the church was given the job of uplifting the non jewish world and now has failed. Maybe G-d is punishing the church for not protecting the jews in WWII, maybe G-d wants us to see the hyprocacy of the church in modern times. I must say when I was young, I went to Catholic School and even though I was deathly afraid of the nuns, I did learn about G-d and how to be a good person. It has stuck with me, my entire life. I am grateful for that experience. I am at the same time very angry at what the church has become and cannot attend mass or even speak to clergy due to the mass destruction and implosion of the catholic church and their great part in destroying what could have been a light of hope in this world. Shame on them.
Cathy, I think we have to find that light of hope in the god that lives in our heart and keeps our breath moving every moment.