Friday, August 24, 2007

The Organization of the Roman Catholic Church, as I know it.

The Roman Catholic Church is a Hierarchical religious organization, the present head of the more than one billion Roman Catholics in the whole world is the bishop of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) he is the 265th successor to Saint Peter,“Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah. For flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth, will be loosed in heaven” (Mt 16:17-19). This passage in the Bible is the basis of the foundation of the Roman Catholic Church.

The church is government in itself, in fact if we will carefully study its organizational structure we can dare say that all of the management functions that we are using right now be it in government or private organizations has its basis in the church. The functions of Leadership, Supervision, Delegation, controlling, Planning and many other organizational principles traces its roots in the church.

The Pope being the Head of the church can be likened to a president of an independent nation. In fact the Vatican where the Pope resides is a Nation and he heads that nation. But unlike a president whose power and influence is confined to limited territory. The Popes sphere of power and influence is not limited in the Vatican. It extends worldwide. When there is a Roman Catholic Parish/Church there extends also the power of the Pope.

The Bishops somewhat functions like the Governors of a civil government because like the governors who heads a certain province or state. The Bishops also heads a certain territory/province or state and it is called Diocese.

The Diocesan Priest territory is called a Parish and the Parish council helps the Priest run the Parish. He is under the guidance and supervision of the Bishop of the diocese. The Parish Priest has similar functions like the Mayors of a City or Municipality.

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