The popes are serial offenders.
The Vatican's latest edict, just last week, related to cremations.
For a long time, the Catholic Church banned cremation altogether. It was seen as a pagan ritual that conflicted with the Christian belief in resurrection.
I was surprised to learn that this rule was relaxed as long ago as 1963. I was brought up Catholic and grew up regarding cremation as strictly forbidden.
It wasn't until the 1980s that I heard of Catholics being incinerated, and even then it seemed a daringly defiant act.
The practice is still frowned upon. The 1983 Code of Canon Law – the Catholic rule book – stated: "The Church earnestly recommends the pious custom of burial be retained; but it does not forbid cremation, unless this is chosen for reasons which are contrary to Christian teaching."
While the Vatican now says it accepts cremation "in principle" (how very magnanimous), the Church hierarchy has underlined its continuing distaste for the practice by imposing restrictions on what can be done with human ashes.
Under these rules, scattering ashes at sea or having them put into a locket are banned. Even keeping a loved one's remains in an urn at home, other than in "grave and exceptional cases" (pun not intended, I'm sure), is proscribed.
In other words, more nit-picking rules imposed from on high by ageing, increasingly irrelevant men, disconnected from the world in which they still fancifully seek to assert authority.
Presumably the behaviour they want to discourage is regarded as not showing proper respect for human remains, and perhaps even undermining the deceased person's prospect of eternal salvation.
But it leaves me a bit puzzled.
In any case, the body is ultimately reduced to nothing either way, whether it's incinerated or lowered into the cold earth. In the Church's own words, it reverts to dust.
The only obvious difference is that in the case of cremation it's destroyed in minutes, whereas a buried body takes years to break down.
Is the Church trying to tell us that the speed of the decomposition process makes a difference to one's chances of resurrection?
As is usually the case with edicts issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's propaganda unit, the justification for the new rules is set out in imperious language that brooks no argument.
When the Church says something is "erroneous" (as in "The Church cannot … condone attitudes or permit rites that involve erroneous ideas about death"), the faithful are expected to accept that, well, it just is.
"Christian teaching" is often cited as the ultimate authority, but what exactly is Christian teaching? Most often, it's a set of arbitrary rules laid down over the centuries by men in Rome, with no obvious basis in the Bible.
I'm often struck by the similarities between edicts imposed by the Catholic Church and those laid down by totalitarian states. Both are typically couched in impenetrable language and seem to accept no obligation to explain the justification for whatever authoritarian position is being adopted.
The bad news for the Church is that people are no longer as compliant as they used to be.
I know lots of otherwise devout Catholics who heartily disagree with the Church on a range of issues, from priestly celibacy to the ordination of women.
One such practising Catholic, in a letter to The Dominion Post this week, wrote that the Vatican appeared to have teams of under-employed civil servants with nothing better to do than dream up new ways to torment the faithful.
"Placing a loved one's ashes at a cherished beauty spot was regarded for years as paying homage to God's wonders in an act of loving harmony with his creation," he wrote.
"A little less doctrine from the Vatican and a little more compassion would be more in keeping with the Christian message."
I bet lots of otherwise loyal Catholics would similarly feel that the rules on the disposal of ashes are yet another example of the gratuitous exercise of authority by an institution that's increasingly out of touch with the people it purportedly serves.
But organised religion is often about power and control. It's true not only of Catholicism but also of Islam, Judaism, the Mormons, the Exclusive Brethren and all those sad repressive sects like Gloriavale on the West Coast, run by a convicted sex abuser who calls himself Hopeful Christian.
The common factor is that those in authority are invariably men.
Their power depends on unquestioning obeisance from their followers – but as the Dominion Post letter writer makes clear, in the educated Western world they are slowly losing their grip.
And not before time.