Come now, Frank, do you really think this is the Catholic Church? -

The Pope may be a nice guy but he represents an institution that enslaves women, prohibits birth control and contraception, and the institution chastises non-believers and ostracizes those who don't espouse their beliefs. The theory of "just wars" is a Catholic precept and establishes a rationale for war which is unjustified particularly when the Church has committed it historically.

• Enslaves women? - who? where? when?
  
• Chastises non-believers and ostracizes those who don't espouse their beliefs? Again - when? What century are you speaking about? That certainly hasn't happened from Rome on an official basis since Vatican II ended in 1965, although there are a few yahoo bishops who haven't caught on to ecumenism yet.
  
• Just war theory? - well, yes, that Catholic Church does teach that there are some circumstances when fighting a war is justified, but only in self-defense. The church has moved closer and closer toward pure pacifism in the last fifty years. Paragraph 2308 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that "all citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war." 2309 says, "The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy..." Here's a link to the entire section titled Safeguarding Peace
  Do you have any idea how many times the Pope spoke out against the US wars in Iraq? It was over fifty times for the first Iraq war - and no pope ever spoke in favor of either war.
  And do you know what the Catholic position is on capital punishment? They think it's immoral.
  
• Birth control? Well, I don't agree with the decision that was made on birth control, it it's not a decision that was carved in stone. I don't agree with the U.S. decision not to include single payer insurance in Obamacare, either. But churches and organizations and governments are in a state of constant flux, and it's up to members to work to change the things they think need changing. And Catholics all over the world widely ignore the birth control prohibition, and the Catholic Church has no power to coerce them. In fact, that church has always taught that individual conscience overrules church law. In 1978, my conscience told me that three kids was enough, so I got a vasectomy.

The basic doctrine of the Catholic Church is fairly simple, the Nicene Creed that was defined in 325 AD. That's not going to change, although it is under constant study and redefinition, and there are differing theological views of almost every article of the Creed. Every organization has basic, foundational documents that remain part of that organization's history and tradition - but most foundational documents are constantly redefined and re-understood to adapt to a changing environment.

Frank, you paint a very narrow, unrealistic picture of the Catholic Church, and it's hard for me to understand why you don't know better. Take a look at the Jesuit America Magazine to see the reality of the Catholic Church, and the diversity of culture and opinion that exists there. Remember that the church elected a Jesuit as Pope the last time around, so there must be some legitimacy to the diversity of opinion expressed in this Jesuit magazine. Blind obedience to the Pope, if it ever existed, went out of style in about 1950 - it was something that Pius IX tried to impose after the Catholic Church lost the Papal States in the 1870s, and the Pope became a self-sentenced "prisoner of the Vatican."
No, the Catholic Church isn't perfect - it is an ever-changing organism that exists in real life and consists of real people. It is not the rigid, intolerant monolith you describe. Churches, for the most part, are not some sort of mind-control mechanism. They're for exploring and marking and celebrating the events and the mysteries of life.

-Joe Offer-