The Catholic Church is a Rich Male Collective

This article deconstructs the Catholic Church not as a sacred spiritual institution, but as a rich, male-dominated, ideologically manipulative organization that has historically served the interests of accumulation and elite control. Sosteric exposes the Church’s global economic power, patriarchal structure, and complicity in abuse, framing it as a Control Structure that functions to suppress Authentic Spirituality and justify systemic oppression.

Rather than an outlier, the Church is portrayed as a paradigmatic example of Colonial Religion — a toxic, co-opted expression of Religion used to disconnect individuals from their power, agency, and consciousness.

Sosteric, M. (2018, September 23). The Catholic Church is a rich male collective. T_he Conversation_.

• Original URL: https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-church-is-a-rich-male-collective-101958
• Canonical URL: https://repo.lightningpath.org/articles/journalistic-pieces/the-conversation/files/the-catholic-church-is-a-rich-male-collective.pdf
• Type: Institutional Critique / Ideological Deconstruction
• Keywords: Religion, Ideology, Systemic Violence, Spiritual Abuse

Theoretical Integration

This article aligns closely with LP theories of ideological control and spiritual colonization, including:

• Colonial Religion: Religion repurposed for social control, gender hierarchy, and elite power.
• Control Structures: Institutional frameworks designed to maintain disconnection and obedience.
• Spiritual Abuse: The deliberate distortion or suppression of connection practices and teachings.
• Ideology: The framing of male domination, wealth hoarding, and abuse as divine will or sacred order.

The article is a useful case study in the desacralization and ideological reversal of legitimate spiritual frameworks under elite rule.

Relevance to Avatar.Global

This piece provides a sharply focused model of how spiritual institutions become corrupted into control systems, reinforcing toxic masculinity, wealth accumulation, and disconnection. It should be used to inform Avatar.Global’s efforts to reclaim spirituality from institutional corruption and expose the ideological subversion of authentic religious practice.

Recommended for:

• Avatar.Global curriculum on religion, power, and colonization
• Deconstruction of patriarchal theology
• Use in any critique of religious institutional abuse