Papa

[Lightning Rod]

Why are popes always old feeble men? Why can't we have a pope like Mick Jagger or even Mariah Carey who can rock your socks and be a fertility god or goddess and take The Church into the real world of dying television and ground-up nihilistic networking tattooed pierced head-banging modern times?

Oh, I guess there are Christians who still believe that Mary was a virgin, and that it is a sin to use condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, and that homosexuals will land in the fiery sphincter of hell, but many people of the Christian persuasion rely on the teachings of The Man himself and focus more on charity, love, compassion, forgiveness than on uptight ritualistic doctrinaire nonsense.

If Karl Rove could have chosen the pope, he would have chosen this one. Benidict is the Church's own nazi. Ok, that may be a cheap shot because Ratzinger was a member of the Hitler Youth, but that just shows that he was a man of his times. I'm a closet Christian, so I can forgive him for this. The question is: is he still a man of his times? Does he realize that he has a billion cafeteria Catholics who already pick and choose which dogma they will accept and blithely eat meat on Friday and roll on a condom if they can't afford more children or don't want to contract AIDS?

My friend said to me, "Who gives a ratzinger's ass who the pope is? We're not even Catholic." I reminded her that it was of some consequence since between a fifth and a sixth of the worlds population was Catholic and the doctrines and policies and attitudes of the Church are more influential than the laws and edicts of many countries. The Church is the most transnational shadow government in the World. There are Catholics in Cuba and communist China, ferchristsake.

But still the Catholics remain mired in ritual and tradition and bureaucracy and insist on selecting a pope who is decrepit and predictable. Institutions don't like to change, and this is the world's oldest institution, if not the world's oldest profession.

John Paul was a wise old pope. He effectively selected his own successor. He stacked the deck of voting cardinals, elevating all but three of those that voted for the new pope. The selection of Benedict was very similar to the election of Putin in Russia. Ratzinger was the Vatican equivalent of the head of the KGB. He was John Paul's hands-on man, the one he sent to Latin America to quell the outbreak of 'Liberation Theology' in places like Honduras and El Salvadore. Benedict is the one that John Paul went to when scandals were breaking out over pedophilia in the priesthood.

In short, Benedict was the head of the Vatican KGB. He took care of internal security matters and defended the orthodoxy. The Church is not ready for change. No old institution is ready for change. Take our government as an example. It is the habit of an old institution to become less and less concerned with the needs and desires of its constituents and more and more concerned with the simple survival of the institution.

Perhaps Benedict will amaze everyone and be a forward thinker and bring the Church into the twenty-first century. Maybe he will decree a sensible birth-control policy and the use of condoms for disease prevention. He could shore up the ranks of the dwindling priesthood by ordaining women as priests. He could lighten up the rhetoric that damns the gay community. He could make the Church relevant.

But The Poet's Eye doesn't look for any of this to happen. Until they get a pope like Jim Carrey or Madonna or at least Teddy Roosevelt, the Church will continue to lose its connection with the people that it is supposed to comfort and serve. The salvation in the situation is that anyone can practice Christian principles without ever setting foot in a church.

[singlemalt]

yeah, Mick for pope and Keith for president!

". . .but what's puzzling you is the nature of my game."
-- Sympathy for the Devil

[mnaz]

Excellent piece, L-rod.

As you say, the trouble with these old, archaic institutions is that as they grow larger and older, they become ever more self-serving over time and lose sight of their original inspiration and purpose.... As I remarked in one of my recent writes.... "they swear to uphold the Church above all else, even at the expense of its own transcendent foundation"..... the US government has grown into a sort of corporate welfare nightmare, especially over the last few decades, and has slipped a long way from "of the people, for the people"......

Thanks.