ABSTRACT
The Catholic Church is governed by decision-makers who at every level from parish to Roman curia are structurally isolated from the realities of ordinary life. Ordination is irrevocable in the theology of the Catholic Church and no amount of inefficiency will cause them to be dismissed. As with other areas of the early Church’s practices, there was a healthy pluralism. In relation to the average lay member of the Church, it is the parish clergy who make all the decisions and impart nearly all the teaching about religion. In the Catholic Church nothing is done to prepare a priest for the task of being a bishop. The Church is left with basically two methods of transmitting its moral programme: schools and sermons. Pupils in Catholic schools may hear about the sacrament of matrimony, for example, when they are simply too young to see it as relevant to their lives.
