Catholicism is disintegrating, and its characteristics are rapidly changing in the same way Protestantism reverted to fundamentalism. It means the pope is more concerned about his infallibility than running an organization in a respectable manner.

The basic problem is fundamentalist reductionism. It is reductionism in that a lot of complexity is reduced to a few over-simplified points. It is fundamentalism in that structural trivia (called fundamentals) replace more real concerns.

Fundamentalist reductionism uses clipped logic involving over-literalness and inerrancy as a basis for authority. Nothing is done with that authority beyond maintaining dominance. It is a method of mongering power as authoritarianism. It obstructs real results and correct interpretations and applications of the religion.

An example in Catholicism is a new line of so-called apologists who supposedly tell us what real Catholicism is. They use inept quotes and jingoism to promote the standard errors and corruptions with the unquestionable logic that it is based upon an infallible magisterium.

In Protestantism, the fundamentalist pattern is well known. Based upon inerrancy of the Bible and over-literal interpretations, they use a few quotes to prove that sin was taken care of on the cross and everything the "born agains" do or say is the infallible work of the Holy Spirit.

The specifics are described in several places on this web site, but the main points will be mentioned here. Starting with the pope, the entire purpose of the two documents which define the pope's interpretation of Catholicism titled "The Splendor of Truth" and "Faith and Reason" was to rationalize his infallibility. He said that only through the "Revelations" which flow infallibly from himself and previous pope's can Catholics acquire correct faith and determine the truth of morality.

The laity now have a jingo which makes them correct Catholics. They define correct Catholicism as promoting the infallibility of the pope and magisterium (teaching authority, mainly meaning bishops). Their purpose then starts with the doctrine of original sin, which requires baptism to overcome it and which historically defined a Catholic. (Notice that the definition of a Catholic has been shifted from baptism to an ideology based upon supporting the pope's infallibility.) The doctrine then adds the other sacraments as the "keys to heaven" which is supposedly the only and complete path to salvation. Protestants get saved only because they are still Catholic enough, and everyone else is nice to get along with but, tough luck, they don't get saved.

I call the result the Catholic problem because it is basically what destroyed Catholicism. The reason why Catholics felt a need for the Second Vatican Council was because the authoritarianism was not credible to an educated public in claiming that only Catholics get saved and the Greek logic of Thomas Aquinas should define theology. This is why the documents produced by the Vatican were discarded at V-II and replaced with the modernism which appears superficially to have destroyed Catholicism.

After two decades of modernism which dismantled Catholicism, the pope dredged up the authoritarian corruptions and is carrying them to extremes unknown in the past. The important point about the pope's documents is that after the reductionist rationalizations there is nothing of relevance for a result. Nothing is done to overcome sin or teach people what the problem or answers are. The theology does the opposite by corrupting the truth through the "natural law" of Thomas Aquinas and the supposed infallibility which destroys the process of reason required for teaching and learning real subjects.

Apologetics in Catholicism
Veritatis Splendor
Thomas Aquinas