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	" Bad" Popes and Bishops By Anthony Stevens-Arroyo Washington Post March 29, 2010 http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/catholicamerica/2010/03/bad_popes_and_bishops.html#more UNITED STATES -- What do Alexander VI, the Renaissance Borgia pope, and today's Benedict XVI have in common? No, it's not a sex scandal - even though different kinds of sex scandals abound in both cases. Rather, like Alexander in his time, Benedict is trying to protect the Church's political power at a time when secularism is replacing respect for religious institutions. Papal history is filled with scandal. Alexander VI (1492-1503) was notorious for his mistresses and illegitimate children. Renaissance pope Julius II (1503-1513) led mercenary armies in Italy as a field general. Paul III (1534-1549) convoked the Council of Trent, but not before he appointed his two teenage grandsons as Cardinals first. Most of Catholic America considers prelates like these to be "bad" popes and bishops. From today's moral standards, they certainly were. But others disagreed; Machiavelli, for example, wrote that Alexander VI was a brilliant politician who was good for the Church. So there is a difference between "morally bad" and "politically bad." I do not subscribe to the idea, common in Protestant circles, that the Holy Spirit abandoned the Renaissance Church. Catholics at that time accepted the goal of institutional power calculating that it outweighed scandal. I suspect that four centuries from now, the Catholic faithful will look back on the Pope John Paul II (1978-2005) and his successors with the same criteria used for the Renaissance popes: despite mistakes, they fought to preserve institutional power. Pope John Paul II reclaimed the role of a politics-first pontiff. While supporting the Polish workers of Solidarity in 1980, it is rumored that he threatened to renounce the papacy and return to Poland to lead a revolution against the Communists. Even if this was only rhetorical hyperbole and not a true threat in the tradition of Julius II, it illustrates John Paul's priorities. His pontificate was organized around protecting Church power against secularism and atheism. He did it in Latin America as well as in Poland. Perhaps most significantly, he appointed hundreds of bishops to implement the same top-down, institution-first policies within worldwide Catholicism. It is from this mindset, we see a Catholic hierarchy that denounces social acceptance of same-sex marriage, education about the use of condoms, laboratory research with embryonic stem-cells and political alliances with secular social movements. Motivating ecclesiastical concerns is the fear that the Church will lose its political influence over public morality. Keeping local clergy on that same message is essential. Thus, for instance, Cardinal Ratzinger would censure an anti-war priest. but give less attention to a pedophile clergyman. It would seem that this was the direction urged on the Church by the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, the emphasis on the political power of the Church can lead to errors by all-too-human prelates. Ironically, while focused on society's sexual sins, today's prelates lost sight of clerical sexual sins. Determination to throw stones at political failings outside the Church, I believe, is a factor in the massive cover-ups of clerical pedophilia. John Paul II himself was initially reluctant to risk scandal in the eyes of the public, turning the nastiness over to then Cardinal Ratzinger. John L. Allen Jr. has reported that this was a providential learning experience to Pope Benedict XVI, even if it came late in the day. I think the contemporary disrepute for Catholicism has parallels with the Renaissance popes and scandalous hierarchy of the past. Certainly, the issues of sexual immorality are different, since there are no accusations that either John Paul II or Benedict XVI personally engaged in abuse of minors. But I am not certain that the Renaissance popes with their mistresses and illegitimate children were necessarily worse for the Church in the long run than today's episcopal cover-ups. It took the Council of Trent and the reforms of a century and a half to reset Catholicism into a 19th century institution capable of influencing public issues like social justice for workers. I would hope that restoration of credible influence for the papacy and the episcopacy today will not take as long. But at any rate, this Good Friday when the liturgy calls us to pray for the Church, its bishops and clergy, there is a clear need to be especially fervent.
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