Q. Why doesn't the Catholic Church change her doctrine to conform to the practice of her members or of society at large? For example, it's rather hypocritical to preach purity and have a pedophilic scandal going on; or else to bar divorce or contraception when other churches have allowed it and the practices are so prevalent in society.
A. Two things.
First and more importantly, she doesn't change her doctrine because it is not her doctrine. Nothing she has or preaches is hers. It is Christ's. She is simply its caretaker or custodian. She cannot change the sacraments or the articles of faith or the Bible. These she has received from their author and only an author has authority to change what he has authored.
What she can change or improve is how these are understood, explained and administered. For example, she cannot change how bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. That is fixed: a properly ordained minister must speak the words Christ himself spoke over unleavened bread and wine from grapes. These she cannot change. That's how Christ did it. But what she can change is how this sacrament is administered e.g. to instruct that one has to fast for at least one hour before receiving the Body of Christ.
Second, this doctrine with which she has been bequeathed, is for all men, of all times and all places including her own members and preachers. But like the very first pope and the very first bishops of the church (St. Peter and the other apostles), her members and preachers today and throughout history will have personal difficulties matching the standards that Christ the Author has set in his doctrine. Christ has a very high regard for man; and the standards he sets for man are equally high.
The Church therefore doesn't preach what she does because it is popular or easy but because it is true. As Martin Luther King Jnr wrote, the early church "was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society."
Happy Sunday!
12th July 2015