It was John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton (Lord Acton) who originally wrote "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." in a letter dated April, 1887, to Bishop Mandell Creighton. Many people who quote Lord Acton's Dictum aren't aware that it refers to Papal power and was made by a questioning Catholic.
While Lord Acton's Dictum was written more than 120 years ago, the meaning of that quotation has never been truer than it is today. We already know that world governments are filled with bad men in positions of power and authority. People have a tendency to overlook, however, the misuse of power and corruption within the church. This issue isn't about the abuse of religion; it's about the abuse of POWER.
As recently as 2006, the Catholic Church in the Philippines attempted to keep a movie, "The Da Vinci Code", from being played in theaters across the country. Although it was only successfully banned in the city of Manila and played throughout the rest of the country, theaters in certain locations refused to play it, including the only decent theater that's local to me. I and my family had to wait until we received it on DVD (in the mail) in order to watch it.
While the instigator of the attempted ban of The Da Vinci Code in the Philippines was the Philippine Alliance Against Pornography (PAAP), there's no doubt in a country where 80 percent of the population are members of the Catholic Church, that the power of the Catholic Church unduly influenced the course of events.
When a movie like this is suppressed by the Catholic community as a whole (or any religion, government, organization), it tells me that those in a position of power feel threatened by anything that could put their authority and power in jeopardy. If a person's beliefs are solid, no works of fiction can have any effect on them.
The preceding is my opinion and why I agree that absolute power corrupts absolutely. If you disagree, feel free to smite me.
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