There's not a human being on the face of the earth who actually displays any of those traits with any consistency.
Correct, I am a sinner, and so is every Christian on earth, including the Pope. The Church isn't a museum for perfect saints, it's a hospital for sinners: "Jesus said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”" – Matt 9:12-13
So, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit doesn't give us immediate and effortless perfection, that's not what Christ or His Church have ever taught. Quite the contrary, sanctification is a
lifelong process of growing in holiness. Just because we are justified, that doesn't mean the tendency to sin (concupiscence), magically disappears. Christian life is an ongoing battle, (Ephesians 6:12), where
we must cooperate with the grace of the Holy Spirit to overcome this concupiscence and grow in virtue. This is very, very hard. Especially in our modern world.
So, the Holy Spirit works with our wounded human nature to heal and elevate it. Every time we sin, it is not because the Holy Spirit has failed, but because
we have failed to cooperate with the grace He has offered us. And the Church holds up thousands of examples of those who have successfully cooperated with the Holy Spirit: the Saints.
Look at St. Francis of Assisi, who radiated a supernatural love for all creation. Look at St. Maximilian Kolbe, who showed the ultimate self-control and love by volunteering to die for another man in Auschwitz. Look at St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who found immense joy and peace in the smallest acts of faithfulness.
They are the proof that with heroic cooperation with God's grace, holiness is possible. The rest of us are simply still under construction. Remember, the true measure of the faith is not the absence of sin, but the repentance that follows it. Don't stay black-pilled brother, look at the lives of our many great Saints rather than the wretched lives of the countless sinner who roam the earth.
Why can't they complain? The argument is that only God can forgive sins, not the institution of the Church.
Likewise, travesties like indulgences, simony, Albigensian/Hussite genocides, Medici/Borgia Papacies did in fact happen. Theoretically the doctrine is supposed to be unchanging, but it clearly has changed - whether that be how people understand it or how it is practiced.
True, fundamentally, only God can forgive sins. But, in His wisdom, God chose to delegate His authority to men to act as His instruments on earth. Just after His Resurrection, Jesus appeared to His Apostles and said: 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.' And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.' – John 20:21-23
And, while the Church is a divine institution, the Mystical Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ, she is also composed of sinners. Our Lord Himself predicted this when he compared the Kingdom of Heaven to a net that catches fish of every kind, good and bad (Matthew 13:47-50), and to a field with both wheat and weeds growing together until the harvest (Matthew 13:24-30).
The sins of popes like the Borgias, or the abuses of bishops who sold indulgences, are a scandal and a grave stain. They're a betrayal of their sacred office. But, the sinfulness of the men doesn't cancel the divine nature of the office they hold. A corrupt judge doesn't invalidate the Constitution. A bad president doesn't nullify the presidency. The Church has survived centuries of attack both from the outside and corruption from within is probably, this is probably one of the strongest arguments for her divine protection. No other institution can make that claim.
If God founded His Church on earth, wouldn't the enemy do everything in his power to destroy it from within and from without, through schism and spreading falsehood and misinformation about it? No other Church gets attacked like the Catholic Church does, there's a reason for that.
This leads us to our next point, confusion about indulgences. There is a common mistake of confusing three distinct things: Dogma, Discipline, and Development. This is easily corrected with a 2-second Google search, but here's the gist of it:
- Dogma is the divinely revealed truth of the Faith (e.g., the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Real Presence, the authority to forgive sins). This is unchangeable and infallible.
- Discipline are the practical rules and regulations of the Church (e.g., how indulgences are administered, the requirement of priestly celibacy in the Latin Rite, the laws of fasting). These are man-made and can and do change over time to suit the needs of the faithful.
- Development of Doctrine is that our understanding of the unchanging Dogma can deepen and become more clearly articulated over time, without the Dogma itself changing.
Indulgences is the perfect example: the
dogma of indulgences (that the Church has the authority from Christ to dispense graces from the Treasury of Merit to remit the temporal punishment due to sin) has
never changed. As a matter of fact, I can obtain a partial, or even a plenary, indulgence right now if I want, free of charge. The
discipline surrounding them (specifically, the practice of asking for alms in connection with an indulgence) led to a grave
abuse: the sale of indulgences. So, the Council of Trent did not abolish the doctrine of indulgences. On the contrary, it strongly reaffirmed the doctrine but condemned the sinful abuse of simony and
reformed the discipline to prevent it from happening again.
The correction of a sinful practice is not a change in doctrine, it is a purification of practice in service of the unchanging doctrine.
