Thursday, February 28, 2013

The Legacy of Two Really Bad Popes

Benedict XVI's retirement is probably going to be the most popular thing he's done as pope.  Lacking any pastoral talents or inclinations, lacking the show-biz acumen of his predecessor, he hasn't been a popular pope.   As the church continues to suffer through the greatest modern scandal of priestly pedophile rape and abuse and hierarchical enabling and cover up, he has misspent his time reasserting the centralized power of the pope and his inner circle and reviving neo-medieval aspects of liturgy.   In those he follows John Paul II,  who made no secret of his desire to have Cardinal Ratzinger follow him.    The two last popes have done more to discredit the papacy than any modern pope, with the possible exceptions of Pius XII, another neo-medievalist.

From what I can see, the bishops and cardinals appointed by those popes will continue to alienate Catholics, who are either leaving the church or going underground in large numbers.  I don't get the sense from any of those bishops or cardinals I've read or heard that they care about The Church, defined by Vatican II as The People.  They care about their power, their control of finances and their ability to rise by the impotent attempts to force Catholics and others to abide by their hypocritical dogmas on sexual morality.   The same hierarchs  who have banned remarrying, divorced Catholic lay people from receiving communion have not done much to ensure that priests who have raped and molested children are not in the position to say mass and enforce that ban.  They have done nothing by way of ending the scandal by ending the rape of children voluntarily.  They've  been shown, by their own documents to have done virtually nothing until forced to by revelations by the secular media and prosecutors.

The hierarchy of the Catholic Church, the clergy, even some of the  non-ordained religious communities, are in serious need of a complete cleansing.  There is no sign that the non-married men who run things will ever do that unless they are forced to and they will resist any movement to change things.  The men who run things now, the cardinals and bishops were appointed first and foremost for their devotion and service to the hierarchy as it has been under these two bad popes.  The medieval, monarchical structure of church governance will  be what they lean on to protect their power and control of property and finance.  It's not got an awful lot to do with the gospel of Jesus who told preachers that they were to carry no money, to wear the bare minimum in clothing, even going without shoes at all, never mind swapping out red Prada for brown, hand made Mexican shoes.   That Benedict XVI is more well known for his shoes than any move for reform or any great adherence to the teachings of Jesus is his own personal scandal, it has earned him an undistinguished place in the roll of popes through history.  He will probably be best remembered for his retirement, which will probably live as his most popular act as pope.

It will be a real miracle if his successor isn't as bad.


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