(Weekly Column)
As the College of Cardinals slinks into Rome to elect a new Pope, the usual chorus of eternal optimists and media lapdo
gs follow close behind. The secular press is ecstatic because they can pose as pious while lifting sagging newspaper sales and static cable ratings. Beaten down progressive Catholics will do their predictable dupe dance, hoping against all odds that an almost modern pontiff will be elevated to the throne.
Of course, we already know the outcome, given that the last two Popes stocked the pool of bishops and cardinals with ideological clones, ensuring conservative continuity. If this weren’t bad enough, the former Pope will be looking over the new boss’ shoulder and has even installed his live-in “personal assistant,” to serve the Pope-elect, guaranteeing he has eyes and ears inside the Vatican.
But even if my dire assessment were completely off base, it would take nothing short of a miracle to avert failure for the next Pope and a crisis of faith for believers. Here are four reasons why the next Pope will be met with nearly insurmountable challenges, no matter how talented or charismatic:
1) The Death of Miracles: In the days of ubiquitous camera phones and recording devices it is nearly impossible to stage miracles that can’t be debunked. This intrusion of reality and realism unsparingly erodes the Vatican’s aura of mysticism and magic, making modern Popes and Bishops look all too human. Furthermore, orthodox religions like Roman Catholicism depend on a façade of purity, particularly of the sexual variety. I don’t need to rehash the already $3 billion in church settlements with the victims of pedophile priests to point out that the hierarchy is about as pure as the driven snow – in New York City.
Finally, the Vatican’s appearance of infallibility and supernatural authority are dependent on the cooperation of obsequious media outlets and amenable public officials who agree to sell the grand illusion. However, the Internet has created a world of gadflies who have broken the rigid, self-interested monopoly of those who once were able to portray the Vatican with rose-colored glasses. A new Pope will not be immune from the pressures of modern media in a wired world.
2) Ongoing Scandal: Seedy new stories of priestly misconduct are so frequent that they are no longer shocking. One has to be living in a fantasy world to think these daily outrages will subside with the selection of a new pontiff. The unrelenting drip of debauchery that has chipped away at the Roman Catholic Church’s reputation will surely continue. This will include new outrages from the crop of Cardinals in Rome today, and may well involve the new Pope himself. Given the sordid history of recent years, what assurances do the faithful have that their new leader won’t be shamed with fresh allegations that he either participated in or covered up child sexual abuse? Such a scenario isn’t far-fetched when one considers the meteoric downfall of once beloved Cardinals Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles and Keith O’Brien of Scotland.
Stanching the wound will be nearly impossible, since so many key clergy are compromised. To end the nightmare, the new pope would have to hire private eyes to investigate every bishop in the world – and then purge the ones whose scandals are ticking time bombs. Without such drastic measures, there are surely more scandals to come and they will constantly shadow the papacy.
3) The System Is Broken: By banning female priests, excluding openly gay ones, demanding celibacy, and a having a history of protecting the church’s reputation – instead of innocent youth, the hierarchy has created the ideal conditions for a Perfect Storm of Scandal. Until the underlying rules are drastically altered and the Vatican chooses to join the modern world, nothing will change and the horrific headlines will keep coming.
4) Developing World Disaster: There are those who believe that an historic selection of a Pope from the developing world might boost the church’s reputation. This would be true if it were someone enlightened, in the mold of Bishop Desmond TuTu. However, the church has deliberately recruited “leaders” who hold archaic views on social issues. This could easily invite a whole new series of problems, such as retrograde attitudes towards women or cultural homophobia. Just imagine the uproar if a Pope from an African nation made the foolish claim that homosexuality is a “western import” or supported Uganda’s right to enact its odious “Kill the Gays” bill? Such plausible scenarios would further degrade the Vatican’s ability to retain members in Europe, North America, and much of Latin America.
It would take an historic leader, with courage, charisma, and conviction, as well as honesty and integrity, to turn this sinking ship around. Does anyone truly see such an extraordinary person at this week’s conclave?
The Borgias never left.
The Borgias made Padre Pederast XVI look like a saint.
The only way to force a real change is for current Catholics to actually leave the church over these scandals. Why somebody would continue to patronize such a disgusting church is beyond me.
My sentiments exactly!
If I were to take issue with anything here, Wayne, I’d say your prognosis is overly optimistic. I think the next Pope is going to preside over a catastrophic collapse of what’s left of Catholicism in the industrialized world. And it’s not so much the sex scandals but the unwillingness of the Church to make any progress on social issues. In fact, I think if anything, the Church has been going backwards, not forward, on social issues ever since the election of John Paul II in 1978. There was a time when the gay Catholic group Dignity was quietly tolerated in many Dioceses in the US. That ended a long time ago. The last I heard of Dignity here in the Bay Area, they were meeting in a protestant church in San Francisco, because the Archbishop here had forbidden them to meet on Diocesan property.
Until a few years ago, I used to go to Mass every weekend in the East Bay. The pastor was an old school left winger from a family of Dust Bowl refugees. He welcomed gay people. He welcomed transgenders. He welcomed potheads. He welcomed everybody. When he died, the Diocese installed a reactionary nutjob from Vietnam. About his third week, he denounced same sex marriage from the pulpit. I turned to my same-sex spouse and said “I’m never coming back.”
And I never did. Not to that parish, not to any parish.
Now how many times a week do you think that’s happening across in the US, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, Australia? People are getting fed up. The church is moving in the wrong direction, and nobody’s happy with it. Not educated people anyway.
The whole thing is going to come crashing down, and as far as I’m concerned, it can’t happen soon enough.
Kurt,
I wish I shared your optimism that the whole thing will come crashing down in a “catastrophic collapse” in the industrialized world. More so than protestants to theirs, catholic lay people seem to have a tremendous inertia and sense of cultural loyalty to the romanist religion. They may not attend much and they may not give much, but by and large many cannot come to renounce it in the end. Effective brainwashing during youth is what I posit as the reason. There is also a not insubstantial pool of highly conservative (some of them quite wealthy) Opus Dei/ Blue Army types that are fanatically devoted to the cult and will certainly form a rump conservative corps for the “leaner and meaner” (focus on the latter) romanist church of the future, especially in the US. Rather than a collapse, I see continued gradual attrition of progressive and educated catholics over time, until the church is remolded into a mormonesque type of a highly hierarchical, highly insular, persistently misogynistic cult. I would rather see it devolve into the apathetic European model of church that is largely ignored by the populace, but Americans tend to be far less sophisticated in abandoning irrational and magical thinking than Western Europeans are.
Any thoughts?
I hear whatcher sayin Paul, but inertia and cultural loyalty aren’t what keep your religion alive. Butts in the pews, that’s what keeps your religion alive, and from what I’ve seen, the butts in the pews belong primarily to three groups: people born before 1945, recent immigrants and young families. The first group is dying off, and the second two groups have had little success in passing their brand loyalty on to following generations. And that demographic reality means doom for the church. There’s just too damn much attrition.
And then you thrown in the vocation problem, and things get really bleak. Numbers of men going into the priesthood in the US and elsewhere in the First World are a teeny tiny fraction of what they were 50 or 60 years ago. Now that doesn’t mean there aren’t enough priests to go around. There are plenty of priests to go around. You just have to import them from places where lots of men are going into the priesthood. And where do you think those places are? You guessed it. The Third World. Nigeria, Uganda, Vietnam, The Philippines, there’s a Catholic vocational glut going on in a lot of developing nations. And priests from those places tend to be socially conservative, which means that they tend to alienate a lot of socially progressive people– the Witness for Peace Catholics and Dorothy Day Catholics and Dignity Catholics and on and on and on.
But I can completely see your scenario coming about– the Church of Anton Scalia and Mel Gibson and Rick Santorum. It could happen. I guess it is happening.
“the hierarchy is about as pure as the driven snow – in New York City.”.
I always laugh when I hear the phrase “as pure as the driven snow”. When I used to live out on my acreage I occaisionally would have my water system fail and I’d have to collect snow in pots and melt it – the driven snow isn’t remotely pure regardless of where you are, in fact, its pretty gross.
“The hierarchy is as pure as the driven snow in New York City”
Please, don’t insult the snow. It can ultimately be very pretty.
I think it is very sad that the progressive liberal wing of the Roman Catholic Church was so stifled by the right wing.
In Quebec, and elsewhere, in my opinion, you have an example of millions of people who have interpreted their faith towards generosity, tolerance, and love.
The likely popes instead are leading millions towards insularity, intolerance, and hatred.
When the cardinal in Scotland apologized he thought his only sin was a sexual one. He did not even mention the people that he abused.
That reminded me that my mother once tried to flee from the Nazis by seeking shelter in a convent, but was refused refuge.
It does seem from these two examples that what many in this Church consider
giving up everything for the Lord, they mean you not I should give everything.
[...] have been tough on the Roman Catholic Church of late, but that is because they have earned every bit of my wrath. [...]
“To big to fail” is that all to familiar recent expression that comes to mind. The church will not come crashing down but will slowly and surely eat itself from within dying a slow and painful death with lots of convulsions and violent unpredictable lashing out. History has shown us this many times before with various empires and regimes etc and this will be no different…
It’s amazing that the very thing held in such high reverie, the idea that Jesus never popped a woodie and therefore never should you except in certain approved conditions, is the very thing that is manifesting the complete viral break down of the very unholy Roman Catholic Church. Sex. Sick Sex and sick Sex rules. Lesson: never set a bar where a bar doesn’t belong.
It sure is fulfilling watching the disgusting church disravel…..and disintegrate….
Where does it say Jesus never popped a woody?
It’s assumed Jesus was celibate, hence celibate priests. I think your question might be answered best with the reply, “where does it say he ever did pop a woodie?” For women and sick sex rules, we need look no further than the infamous and completely false “virgin birth”, a thing that was attached to several “messiahs” pre Jesus.
The entire Jesus story can be fully flushed out by simply looking at the characteristics of the zodiac. It’s quite succinct.
Wayne,
Love that pic. Though it’s really not complete w/o Georg Ganswein sitting on the Pope’s right shoulder, in a speedo.
Idavid said “It’s assumed Jesus was celibate, hence celibate priests. I think your question might be answered best with the reply, “where does it say he ever did pop a woodie?””.
Its a very long ways from celibate to “never popped a woody”. Either question will work but the fact that they do says there is no basis for the idea that Jesus never popped a woody. I think virtually every man will attest that never popping a woody at some point is basically an impossibility.
I don’t think it adds anything to the debate to counter unverifiable statements with unverifiable statements or by returning inflammatory statements for inflammatory statements. The other side gives no dignity or propriety to the discussion; surely we can be better than that. If we aren’t, it’s just a snowball fight.
The worst pope from our standpoint would be a pope who has the same views, but has good, telegenic people skills.
What will topple the Catholic Church in time is not any of the things mentioned above, but the fact that they have no pastoral theology. Systematic theology deals with general principles and pastoral theology deals with special cases. They frequently apply general principles to special cases where it makes no sense, such as forcing a woman to take an anencephalous fetus full term, because even though it has no brain, it has a heart beat. The Catholic Churches loses people like that, and with them, their families and friends.
The loss of miracles is a plus for the Catholic Church. Any Catholic who claims to have witnessed a miracle is a potential loose canon, a person who thinks he has a direct line to God that doesn’t go through the hierarchy. They only certify the harmless ones.
However, they have a billion members, so it will take a awhile.
Priya,
Then one would have to ask if Jesus ever had sex. It’s all just speculation.
And though this sex sitch w the church could be it’s undoing, I think the realization that “god”, the supposed basis for negative beliefs undoing humanity, is becoming more and more suspect as to validity, could be the final “nail”.
i am thrilled that the catholics are losing ground. i think eventually all superstitions will go the way of the dodo. i don’t see the church ever doing a good deed because charity with an agenda is not a good deed. a useless contraption at best. and so we have a vacuum of sorts where good deeds are necessary. i hope we fill that vacuum with genuine giving instead of lies preceeded by indoctrination by desparation.
Idavid said “Then one would have to ask if Jesus ever had sex. It’s all just speculation.”.
Why would one need to ask that? You don’t need to have sex to get a woody. I think the vast majority of men would raise their eyebrows at the thought of a healthy male never having had a woody, celibate or not. If it doesn’t say one way or the other in the bible we have to go on what we know of male experience and based on that, although possible, it seems extremely unlikely Jesus never had a woody.
I agree. He was a freedom fighter and a man, framed into religion after he died, with no input as to accuracy. The whole celibate push in religion has nothing to do with the reality of Jesus. In fact it partially came about through St Augustine, a sex addict that went celibate, not unlike much of the ex-gay world. Needless to say it’s all based on lack of facts and lack of education.
Tune in tomorrow, tuesday, March 12th….. The lights in the ‘Tent’ go on again. What a circus…….
[...] and every prediction I made about the selection of a new Pope has come to pass. Here is what I wrote in a recent column about the [...]