We blame Constantine. He converted to Christianity and with it, his whole Empire. That is where the rot set in. Embracing a faith built on the memory of a Messiah the Empire had executed 300 years earlier was an irony that many Early Fathers missed- but the ascetics did not. They saw the Holy Roman Empire as a blasphemy.
Saint Anthony and the dissidents headed for the desert to build a Christianity away from the flesh pots of power, one that might stay true to the Jesus of the Gospels, a Gospel that said said nothing of Popes, Basilicas, Cardinals or Canon Law. And that tradition of being out of the mainstream has persisted, sometimes by choice, and sometimes by pure anti-catholicism.
Catholics used to even be a blighted minority, one that once was considered lower than the lowest, victims of racial profiling as in “Irish need not apply” and considered as a special lower species of humanity. What happened? From blessed are the poor to blessed are the privileged. We graduated from schools built for the poor kids of the slum and our kids graduated from schools like the prestigious Georgetown Prep and Gonzaga.
One can almost imagine a scene straight out of Dostoevsky where Jesus comes before the Inquisition as “the accursed Galilean.” Would Jesus facing the Supreme Court have much of a chance? This is how Dostoevsky imagined the judges trying to teach Jesus about power and where he had failed.
“There are three powers, three powers alone, able to conquer and to hold captive for ever the conscience of these impotent rebels for their happiness those forces are miracle, mystery and authority.” (The Brothers Karamazov)