Our Lord warns us in the New Testament: "Beware of the Yeast of the Pharisees". Examples of this instruction are in Mark 8, verses 14-21 and Matthew 16, verses 5-12. Jesus is speaking to the disciples about yeast and bread. The disciples, as per usual, were not comprehending what Jesus was really talking about. The gist of the words of Jesus to the disciples is in verse 12. It says, "Then they understood that he had not told them , beware of the yeast of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

We see the leaven of this Pharisaical yeast in our RC Church and it is called: "clericalism". Clericalism is not a recent phenomenon, as the Church is 2000 years old, and we have had a plethora of ecclesiastical persons and theologians who have left their contributions to clericalism. I am not going to cite the origins of the "clerical" elements of the Church, but, I remind you that Pope Francis has said a number of times: "Clericalism is a problem". We can see in the creation of the latest Roman Missal what the yeast of the clergy can do. On this website, you will find a scathing review of the Institutional Church and it’s imposition of a very, very, burdensome text of the Roman Missal. That entry is by an Australian priest by the name of Father Kevin Burke.

Clericalism is a problem for a number of reasons. Clerics are seen to possess both structural and spiritual power, over and above, the ordinary Catholic. It is not only that they assume to have this power but they do all they can to keep this power. This inherent imbalance of power is seen to be responsible for children being abused and for all other inequalities that exist between clerics and the people in the pew. People who have such power are in a ripe position to abuse that power and unfortunately it has also happened in the RC Church. This is a travesty, given that the Church, people and clergy, are supposed to be acting in the name and person of Christ.

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