The Vatican’s Winter of Discontent

By Michael Kryzanek
Enterprise News
March 2, 2013

http://www.enterprisenews.com/opinions/opinions_columnists/x1893339805/COMMENTARY-The-Vatican-s-winter-of-discontent

As a practicing Catholic, I find it a bit tawdry – but certainly not surprising in our world where making a buck is paramount – that there are now betting lines on who will be the next pope. Our own Sean Cardinal O’Malley has a 40/1 chance, according to an Irish outfit called PaddyPower.com. No matter what proud Catholics in the Boston Archdiocese are saying, Cardinal Sean is a long shot as the money heads elsewhere.

Las Vegas odds makers are not taking any wagers on the next pope but foreign gaming companies are alive with betting action. Most of the money wagered is not from the United States, since technically Americans are denied the opportunity to place Internet bets through foreign gaming firms. This regulatory roadblock has not stopped bettors here in the states from dropping a twenty or fifty on Cardinal O’Malley using “back channels.”

By the way, if you’re interested, the “smart money” is on Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson at 11/4 with Milan’s prelate Angelo Scola on the rise at 7/1.

It seems that with every passing day the election of the successor to Pope Benedict XVI becomes more bizarre and controversial. The betting lines are the least of the troubling developments. The eight-year reign of Benedict has been filled with scandal and disappointment – ever-expanding child abuse allegations, charges of money laundering, deep divisions and sinister cabals among the Vatican hierarchy, and most recently Italian newspaper reports of secret gay Vatican cardinals working to undermine the authority of Benedict. No wonder the pope decided to resign, enter a cloister and pray alone.

The trials of Benedict and the current jockeying for leadership and power in the Catholic Church are far removed from the everyday lives of the faithful here in Massachusetts. Every once in a while, Rome touches our part of the world, such as the appeal that is before the equivalent of the Vatican Supreme Court over the closing of St. Frances X. Cabrini church in Scituate and the over 8-year vigil (or occupation, depending on your religious perspective) by 100 faithful who refuse to give up their challenge to the Archdiocese of Boston and Cardinal O’Malley.

Whether the dispute between the Archdiocese and the parishioners at St. Frances is an ill-advised closing of a vital parish, a necessary step to consolidate parishes with low attendance or, as some of the vigil volunteers suggest, a bold attempt to secure valuable real estate near the waterfront, the faithful continue to follow the model of Christ as they keep open the food pantry, work with drug addicted residents of their towns and live the Gospels every day.

Far too often, the gulf between the men in the Vatican and the faithful on the frontlines of Christianity and Catholic values is so great that one wonders whether the College of Cardinals has ever read the Sermon on the Mount, the story of the Good Samaritan or St. Paul’s famous words on love. I am not the first Catholic to say that the people in the pews are the Catholic Church not the hierarchy in the Vatican.

Whoever becomes the successor to Peter, it would be religiously refreshing and, more importantly, critical to the life of the Catholic Church for these men to remember that they work for the faithful, are charged with living out the words and deeds of Jesus, and should never fall prey to the pettiness, the selfishness and the personal corruption that often accompanies a large and isolated bureaucracy.

If I were a betting man, I would say that the prospects of the cardinals embracing these three key goals are also a long shot.

Michael Kryzanek is executive director of the Minnock Center for International Engagement at Bridgewater State University. He can be reached on Twitter@MikeKryzanek