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| Can Pope Francis Save the Church in the Philippines?
By Jerry Slevin
Christian Catholicism
January 16, 2015
http://christiancatholicism.com/can-pope-francis-save-the-catholic-church-in-the-phillipines/
Pope Francis appears to be a master of modern media. He wisely often leaves the Vatican’s scandalous space swamped by child abuse cover-ups and financial corruption charges for potentially more media friendly outposts, like Manila. The pope’s media managers then seek to present the Catholic Church in nations like the Philippines as a flourishing institution, even a national treasure. While the Catholic faith is likely a personal treasure for many Filipinos, is it a national treasure? Is the Church flourishing in the Philippines? If not, what if anything can Pope Francis do to change that? Media masters can create mirages, but these fade fairly quickly under pressure from hard facts. Facts, like Dorothy’s dog, Toto, tend to push open the curtains of wizards, even papal ones if necessary.
As Pope Francis tries hard to appear positive in the Philippines, Archbishops Niensted put his Minneapolis Archdiocese into bankruptcy today (1/16/15), the 12th US Catholic diocese to do so mainly as a result of priest child abuse claims. The financial ramifications of priest child abuse are only in their early stages for the Catholic Church in the Philippines, it appears. On the Minneapolis bankruptcy, please see:
[abcnews.go.com]
[wsj.com]
[canonicalconsultation.com]
As John Allen significantly reports today from the Philippines, “Nonetheless, the fact that Francis chose to repeat those two points here { i.e., Francis’ opposition to contraception and same sex marriage}, in a country that recently went through a national debate over a “Reproductive Health” law guaranteeing universal access to contraception despite strong Catholic opposition, is noteworthy. The comments take on additional significance ahead of a summit of Catholic bishops scheduled for October on issues pertaining to family life, where issues such as marriage and contraception are expected to arise. “
Please see John Allen’s “Pope Francis criticizes gay marriage, backs contraception ban” at:
[cruxnow.com]
It appears that Pope Francis has laid down in the Phillipines a major marker for his most important international battle — to help any US Republican candidate defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential elections. Please see: “Hillary Clinton vs. Pope Francis in 2015? at:
[christiancatholicism.com]
The Catholic Church is declining, not flourishing, in the Philippines, it appears. A fair measure of a religion’s spiritual and financial health is weekly attendance statistics. If Catholics do not show up, worship and contribute regularly, counting them as Catholics seems like a hollow bad habit. An April 2013 survey found that weekly church attendance among Filipino Catholic adults dropped more than 42 percent to 37 percent in 2013 from a reported high of 64% percent in 1991.
The survey also showed that while only 37% of Catholics attend church weekly. in comparison, there are percentage wise nearly twice as many of other Christians who are weekly churchgoers: 64% among Protestants, 70% among Iglesia ni Cristos and 62% among other Christians. Seventy-five percent of Muslims attend a mosque at least weekly. This indicates that the Catholic Church in the Philippines is declining sharply, rather than flourishing, no? It also appears to have some flourishing competitors. Of course, 37 % still can currently generate millions of Catholics who can be expected to come out and participate in a once in a generation papal mass, as is now happening. But by attending a well hyped papal mass, a “good Catholic” one does not necessarily make, no?
Moreover, the Catholic hierarchy hardly seems to be a national treasure in the Philippines or anywhere else, it seems. The nation has one of the highest birthrates in Asia and a population of almost 100 million. By 2080, demographers predict that population could swell to 200 million. Right now, more than a quarter of Philippine people live on the equivalent of 62 cents a day, according to government data. According to the United National Population Fund, half of the 3.4 million pregnancies in the Philippines each year are unintended.
The slums of the Philippines are reportedly already overcrowded. Families stand in line for more than 12 hours for a government assistance check. Some soup kitchens are forced to limit their guests to street children, the elderly and homeless people with severe disabilities.UNICEF estimates there are as many as 500,000 “street children” in the Philippines.
The Philippines obviously has a major overpopulation problem. As discussed below, the unquestionable reason for this is the lack of accessible and effective family planning programs. Field.research indicates that only around a tenth of Filipina women refrain from using birth control out of religious conviction. Many of the rest simply are unable to afford or obtain contraceptives. The main reason for this has been the strong opposition of the Catholic bishops to government family planning programs.
By battling family planning for so long, the Catholic Church badly misjudged the national mood, said Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform, a Manila-based think tank, as reported by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). “The Filipinos are religious, but not that religious that they just go along with whatever the church teaches,” he said. “Surveys at the time showed that 85% of people, including Catholics, were for the [Reproductive Health] bill. The church cannot dictate to society any more on these issues.” If it fails to update its message, the church risks losing members to other Christian denominations, he warned.“There’s a lot riding on this visit,”Mr. Casiple said. {My emphasis}
The female executive director of Catholics for Reproductive Health, a group of progressive Catholics that spent years campaigning for the law, indicated in the WSJ report that she hoped Pope Francis would encourage Filipino bishops to tone down their opposition to groups that support access to contraception.“We believe that you can advocate reproductive health and practice family planning, and still be a good Catholic,” she reportedly said.“We were, and still are, treated as sinners,” she said, “[but] for us what is immoral is to bring children into this world without love, proper care, and nourishment.” {My emphasis}
What can the pope now do to save the Catholic Church in the Philippines? Pope Francis should still now in Manila endorse a contraception family planning option for parents of street children in the Philippines and for similarly situated couples worldwide. Pope Francis preaches piously before cameras that his top priority is a “preferential option for the poor”. Yet behind closed doors, his subordinate bishops in the Philippines still push to deny couples a family planning option that could really help poor families there.
This papal contradiction in practice has been vividly brought to the forefront by the this recent article [Daily Mail] about Manila’s street children and their prophetic advocate and Nobel Prize nominated Irish missionary priest, Fr. Shay Cullen. Many of these children have been locked up in poor conditions for at least the duration of the pope’s visit.
Fr. Cullen discussed in 2012 his work over several decades on USA PBS-TV’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, indicating even then that the Filipino Catholic hierarchy was more concerned with curtailing contraception then curtailing child trafficking and sexual abuse. Please see:
[video.pbs.org]
Pope Francis’ contradictory, if not hypocritical, statements relating to family planning has surprisingly been well highlighted recently by an informative article in papal supporter, Rupert Murdoch’s influenced Wall Street Journal (WSJ) here [Wall Street Journal] . In this WSJ article, it has been suggested that some Filipino Catholics just dismiss the Catholic Church’s teachings on sex and birth control as unscientific and outdated for couples living in modern societies.
The WSJ article indicates that outside the birth control clinic in Tondo, a slum area in Manila, children combed through stinking piles of trash, and ran through heavy traffic to clamber onto the backs of moving garbage trucks. For a 2008 video showing some of the harsh conditions in the Tondo/Manila slum, please see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwixeXEVA8k . The Philippine birthrate is quite high by regional standards. In deprived areas like Tondo/Manila, women still typically have six or seven children, according to the NGO. According to the WSJ report, the NGO regularly welcomes 13-year-old mothers, or 16-year-olds with two or three babies, health workers said.
Pope Francis must stop preaching and act. He must promptly demand (1) that officials release these children from detention immediately, (2) that Manila’s showpiece Cardinal Tagle try to make sure that Manila street children are not abused by officials and others this way again, (3) that Church, government and business leaders help these children more and soon, and (4) that his bishops stop pumping the high Filipino birthrate by opposing access to affordable and effective contraception options from poor couples that seek it.
At Christmas, Pope Francis spoke inspiringly about the sufferings of innocent children. He said: “My thoughts today go to all children who are abused and mistreated: those killed before they are born; those deprived of the generous love of their parents who are buried under the selfishness of a culture that does not love life; those children displaced by war and persecution, abused and exploited under our eyes and the silence that makes us accomplices.” Now he must act on his own words.
Indeed, Pope Francis must now endorse contraception. Otherwise, Pope Francis’ “preferential option for the poor” is just another pious papal platitude, no? Yes, Pope Francis should change these teachings now, and he could if he really wanted to as suggested by recent articles by two prominent Catholic moral theologians here [National Catholic Reporter] and here
[iglesiadescalza.blogspot.com]
Predictably, the Filipino government and perpetual papal promoters, like the USA’ s John Allen at Crux and the National Catholic Register and National Catholic Reporter, have tried to spin favorably the street children obscenity, or just avoid it so far, as has most of the main stream media.
Last year, the Philippine Supreme Court approved a landmark Reproductive Health Law, clearing the way for the government to start giving many thousands of families access to contraception for the first time in a country with a comparatively high birthrate and a related and stubborn poverty level.
The Catholic Church’s local bishops, likely at Vatican direction, fought the measure strenuously for years. The Philippines has 80+ million Catholics, a number surpassed only by Brazil and Mexico. It is also deeply conservative; adultery is a criminal offense there carrying a penalty of up to six years in jail, and divorce is forbidden.
Many Filipino Catholics hope, perhaps in vain, that Pope Francis will heal divisions opened by the battle over the Reproductive Health Law during his visit. Senior Church officials have warned the pope is unlikely to soften the Vatican’s opposition to contraception. The results of the recent Synod on the Family reinforce this likelihood. Nevertheless, Pope Francis should endorse the contraception option now in Manila, if he is really serious about a “prefential option for the poor”.
According to the WSJ, every day roughly 60 women attend the clinic to seek advice and obtain free contraceptives, said health volunteers with an NGO that opened the clinic and five other centers here in 2008, after the government lifted a ban on contraception imposed on religious grounds by a former mayor of Manila.
A local Filipino Catholic seminary priest reportedly told the WSJ: “The church has never promoted mindless reproduction”, he said, but opposes artificial contraception on the grounds that “God created the female body perfectly.” He added: The church under Pope Francis would continue to advocate “responsible parenthood via natural family planning,” or abstaining from sex on the most fertile days of a woman’s monthly cycle, instead of other methods, he said. {My emphasis}
Women at the Tondo/Manila’s family planning clinic reportedly indicated that this approach advocated by Catholic Church leaders had one sure outcome: more babies. “Natural family planning doesn’t work,” reportedly said a community health worker. “Priests are not experts in this.” Catholic women in the Philippines commonly use contraception and lie to their priests, the health worker reportedly said, to safeguard church benefits such as school sponsorships for children. “But we’re still Catholics,” she said. “We’re only doing what’s best for our family.” {My emphasis}
This selective Filipino Catholicism has become the norm, said Fatima Juarez, a researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health advocacy group according to the WSJ. “Women in the Philippines are not so traditional—they want to control their families,” she said. Based on her field research only around a tenth of Filipina women not using birth control refrain out of religious conviction, Ms. Juarez said, with many of the rest simply unable to afford or obtain contraceptives.
The prevalence of abortions—illegal in the Philippines—further underlines the need to implement the Reproductive Health Law aggressively nationwide, Ms. Juarez said. One in seven pregnancies here, more than half a million a year, end in a back street abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute’s research.
As mentioned above. a UK newspaper, with some help from Nobel Prize nominated Irish priest, Fr. Shay Cullen, an advocate for Manila’s many “street children”, has shockingly reported, with graphic pictures, that hundreds of boys and girls have been rounded up from doorways and roadsides by officials and put behind bars in recent weeks to make the poverty-racked city more presentable when Pope Francis arrives. UNICEF estimates there are as many as 500,000 “street children” in the Philippines. Please see the must read article at [Daily Mail] and see also:
[catholic.org]
[newsmax.com]
[scmp.com]
[manilastandardtoday.com]
************************************************************
Please note that even the summary “bulletin points” in the Daily Mail article are quite shocking, see:
*************************************************************
“Street children in Manila are being rounded up before the Pope’s arrival”
“Officials claim it is to stop gangs of beggars targeting the Pope”
“But critics say it is a cynical move breaching the children’s human rights”
“MailOnline investigation finds horrendous conditions at the centres”
“Children forced to sleep on floors and kept with adults who beat them”
“Some children have been starved and chained to pillars in the centres”
“One child rounded up 59 times – yet he is still living on the streets”
***************************************************************
The UK article reports that: “Rosalinda Orobia, head of Social Welfare Department in Manila’s central Pasay district, confirmed her officials had for weeks been detaining street children in the areas the Pope will visit and had taken in children as young as five.”
“Bizarrely, she claimed the operations were aimed at stopping begging syndicates targeting the Pope rather than tidying up the city. ‘They (the syndicates) know the Pope cares about poor kids, and they will take advantage of that,’ she told the Manila Standard newspaper”.
In an editorial, the Manila newspaper reportedly slammed the official’s remarks, saying: “We should all be scandalized by the government’s artificial campaign to keep the streets free of poor children only for the duration of the papal visit.”
This is outrageous. The ex-bouncer pope, who knows well the slums of Buenos Aires, does not need to be shielded from the sights of Manila’s “street kids”.
Pope Francis must promptly demand (1) that officials release these children from jails immediately, (2) that Manila’s showpiece Cardinal Tagle try to make sure that Manila street children are not abused by officials and others this way again, (3) that Church, government and business leaders help these children more and soon, and (4) that his bishops stop pumping the high Filipino birthrate by opposing access to affordable and effective contraception options from poor couples that seek it. Otherwise, Pope Francis’ preferential option for the poor is just another pious papal platitude, no?
Pope Francis is already vulnerable to criticism that his go-slow approach to protecting children abused by priests is part of the long standing Vatican cover-up. He must now act decisively and promptly on helping these “street kids”, or be at risk of claims that he is covering up the harmful and inevitable consequences of the Vatican’s socially inhumane and theologically unnecessary ban on contraception.
Pope Francis has considerable clout in the Philippines, which is over 80% Catholic, unlike the smaller minority Catholic populations in Sri Lanka and South Korea where he recently visited. The Philippines is both the main Vatican outpost in Asia, and a rising regional economic factor, according to colleagues of Francis’ key adviser, Peter Sutherland of Goldman Sachs.
Asia appears to be Pope Francis’ new frontier and likely also where much of the world’s power and money are heading in the next few decades. Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, reportedly recently said, “Asia is one of Francis’ priorities.”
The Philippine’s wealth, however, is increasingly very unevenly distributed. This is a growing political and social problem that has been exacerbated by the Philippines’ comparatively high birth rate, especially among Catholics, which helps explain the large population of “street kids”.
Catholic bishops, evidently at Vatican direction, have lobbied for years against making effective contraception options affordable and accessible to poor Filipino couples desiring them. As almost everywhere else, wealthy Catholics there have ready access to effective contraception options. Access to effective contraception is mostly a problem for poor couples.
Recent climatic catastrophes, including a devastating super typhoon, have intensified the economic and social pressures on many of poor Filipino families. Pope Francis tactically may prefer publicly to discuss climate change, rather than his contraception ban in the Philippines. Yet, few Filipino couples can affect the weather, while most of them could plan their family sizes much better if the pope called off his bishops’ lobbyists there. So most Filipinos would likely prefer to hear the pope talk about reversing his ban on contraception rather than changing the weather.
Pope Francis will begin his visit with a Manila Mass, celebrated with US educated Cardinal Tagle, at Manila’s Cathedral. The building was recently renovated reportedly at a cost approaching US$ 100 million, which included installing central air conditioning and special Dutch bells.
The Manila extravagances remind some of the extravagances of the German Bishop of Bling and of the shameful (nearly US $200 million each) “cathedral edifice complexes” of Los Angeles Cardinal Mahony and New York’s Cardinal Dolan. Manila, LA and NY all have large numbers of homeless families that could have better benefited if some of the excessive cathedral renovation funds were spent on some of these “street children” and their families.
Will Pope Francis address in the Philippines these wasteful excesses by his Cardinals? Very unlikely, which seems to be very revealing, no? Most Catholics can read and understand fairly well what is really going on here, I think. They increasingly realize Pope Francis often says one thing while he permits his bishops to do the contrary.
Pope Francis is now facing directly the need to make a crucial public choice, first in the Philippines. It involves papal infallibility, the cornerstone of the post-1870 “papal power myth” that is no longer credible to many Catholics, especially in light of the current scandals such as the priest child abuse cover-ups. Rethinking “infallibility” is clearly an essential prerequisite to curtailing the child abuse, sexual morality, financial and other scandals. Pope Francis must now accept and acknowledge honestly that prior popes made mistakes that must be corrected. If he does not accept this, he cannot save the Catholic Church. Making popes saints just makes matters worse.
This crucial choice facing Francis arises most prominently with respect to the papal ban on contraception. This is a major matter for many traditional Catholic Filipinos, over 80 % of the population. Also, the Church’s scandals are increasingly challenging the faith of many Filipino Catholics, especially younger ones as reported here:
[Rappler] See also please, “Where Are the Young Adults” at:
[ncronline.org]
The Philippines then present sharply for Pope Francis the need to reverse the contraception ban. This ban had been rejected overwhelmingly in 1966 by Pope Paul VI’s so-called papal birth control commission, including clear rejection by cardinals, bishops, top theologians and informed lay members, including women, scientists, psychologists and other experts. The commission studied the morality of the birth control “pill” and contraception thoroughly over a four year period
The commission’s final report, however, was undercut secretively by conservative Cardinals with clout over Pope Paul VI. These Cardinals and the pope worried about undermining the case for papal infallibility, and thereby weakening papal power tied to infallibility If Paul VI approved the pill in 1968, less than four decades after an earlier pope in 1930 condemned birth control, apparently mainly for geo-political reasons, Paul VI would risk losing any future claim to papal infallibility. Paul VI was looking out for No. 1, it appears, so he rejected his own commission’s report.
This 1966 commission’s still relevant story has been well described by Robert Blair Kaiser in his classic and superb book, “The Politics of Sex and Religion”. Kaiser is a former reporter for The New York Times, prize-winning foreign correspondent (for Time) and, later, for Newsweek in Rome. He has generously made this classic book available for free as an downloadable e-book at:
[Smashwords]
There was only one commission report. Please also note a recent effort by conservatives to undercut this papal commission’s final official report by resurrecting the last ditch ploy in 1966 by conservative Cardinals and the pope to create a misleadingly named “minority report” at:
[National Catholic Reporter]
For a defensible and responsible way that Pope Francis can readily resolve this matter now, if he really wants to, please see the important and compelling brief analysis by the world’s leading authority on Catholic sexual morality, Fr. Charles Curran, at:
[National Catholic Reporter]
Please see also the English translation of the reported helpful and hopeful analysis of the recent Synod’s statements about “Humanae Vitae” by the well regarded Jesuit moralist, Juan Masia Clavel, S.J., entitled, “Dignified sexuality and responsible fertility: What does — and doesn’t — hold from ‘Humanae Vitae’ ” at:
[iglesiadescalza.blogspot.com]
Francis’ initial Synod a few months ago, in effect, reaffirmed on an interim basis, with “cherry picked” all celibate male voters, the contraception ban by a vote of over 95 % of the Synod bishops. Problematically for Pope Francis, a similar percentage of the 99.99 % of the Catholic faithful in good conscience (the “sense of the faithful”) agree with the 5% of the Synod bishops who appeared to want to rescind the papal ban now.
Nevertheless, the Final Synod in October will likely also reaffirm the contraception ban, with the probable effect that many more millions of Catholics will leave the Church, especially young couples, the Church’s lifeline.
Pope Francis appears to be boxed in at present. Most likely, he will have no feasible alternative other than to convene soon an ecumenical council, as has been recently rumored according to the report of knowledgeable Vatican journalist, Robert Mickens Hopefully, the new worldwide council would be held far away from Rome, perhaps in Buenos Aires or even Manila, with a diverse group of informed lay Catholics, including women, as prominent and full participants.
Some cynics will say that another worldwide council, with mainly bishop appointees of the last two conservative and dictatorial popes, would never change this historically unsupportable “infallibility dogma”. If so, and they may be right, the Vatican will then likely soon be forced to change by outside governmental and legal pressures soon enough.
Pope Francis has a choice, however. He can call for a broad based and open ecumenical council to really make the needed changes or he can wait to be likely forced to do so. Moreover, many beneficial reforms resulted from the Second Vatican Council a half century ago. It consisted of 2,500+ bishops appointed mainly by two extremely “imperial popes”, Popes Pius XI and Pius XII. Nevertheless, after thorough and open discussions, these bishops generally adopted some very important reforms. That should give Pope Francis and all Catholics some hope.
Otherwise, Pope Francis after the upcoming October Synod would face having to adopt reforms unilaterally as an “infallible pope”, likely following two indecisive, unrepresentative, conflicting and even chaotic Synods. This could well lead to major schisms among competing Church leadership factions and a massive exodus of disappointed, if not discouraged and even some disgusted, Catholics worldwide.
By then as well, unending and even escalating governmental investigations and legal proceedings, in Australia, the UK, Ireland, Minneapolis (USA) and likely other locales, can be expected to overwhelm the Vatican’s ability to resist them under a wearied pope in his eightieth year. Any successor to Francis will only be in a worse position.
Meanwhile, the financial fallout from the related scandals can be expected to lead to more diocesan bankruptcies, as speculation is already growing that this will happen soon in previously prosperous dioceses like Minneapolis/St. Paul (USA). Many more diocese can be expected to curtail significant Church activities by closing parish churches and schools and similar entrenchments. Please see:
[mprnews.org]
These scandals have been steadily undermining since at least 1870 the Catholic Church’s efforts to spread
Jesus’ Gospel message of love in and honest and effective way. A desperate Pope Pius IX unwisely, in effect, had himself declared to be infallible at the First Vatican Council, as he sought to salvage some “soft” papal power in the face of the imminent loss of his Papal States kingdom. Since then, popes have been constrained adversely from correcting earlier papal mistakes for fear of appearing “fallible”. This has been a disaster, even for popes, in my view, and has led to what Pope Francis fairly refers to as the “mess” in the “house of cards”.
The infallibility declaration is still the cornerstone of the modern papal strategy, based mainly on historical myths and “realpolitick”. The strategy places an absolute monarch, the pope, on top, ruling tightly over well rewarded subordinate bishops for life, who in turn rule pursuant to a “pope made” code of canon law over “ontologically pure” and all male priests, who collect the 99.99% of Catholics’ donation funds and administer to them the purported papal “monopoly” over the Eucharist. Some of these donated funds are required to be sent up the chain even to the Vatican.
The 99.99% Catholic majority are heavily indoctrinated to “pay, pray and obey”, beginning as early as 7 years old at First Confession, and thereafter to conform their lives according to a top down mandated Catechism that covers in detail almost all aspects of Catholics’ behavior, including their sex lives.
So called “dissenters” are quickly and severely sanctioned, especially if they question “infallibility”, as preeminent and prophetic Catholic theologian, Fr. Hans Kung, learned so painfully in 1979.
This strategy is much more “Roman” than “Catholic”, yet a self perpetuating and wealthy Catholic hierarchy, who personally benefit considerably by the strategy, have been able to sustain this, at least until the latest round of scandals, especially those involving child abuse.
And of course, clerical “sins”, especially those involving priests abusing children and complicit bishops’ related cover-ups, are generally covered by secrecy requirements and are handled by “Church trials”, held behind closed doors by other priests, an evidently conflicted and unsatisfactory procedure.
The nonstop, even escalating, scandal revelations via the Internet and 24/7 worldwide media, and the threat of government prosecutions of top Church leaders, have finally forced the Vatican to reassess its short-sighted 1870 strategy of a “semi-divine” pope. The recent Synod fiasco made clear to honest and close observers worldwide that the pope is hardly infallible.
Indeed, as the pope travels to Asia, the scandals keep erupting. For example, new and troubling details of the alleged cover-ups by Fr. Kevin McDonough, brother of President Obama’s Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough, are publicly unfolding at present. The brothers have publicly reported about their close relationships. As President Obama’s representative, Denis McDonough, told a large group, including Catholic prelates several years ago: “As a husband, father and public servant, I’m thankful for the counsel and wisdom of my older brothers—Bill, who was a priest, and Kevin, who is a priest.”. The latest revelations indicate that the cover-up, with impunity, in Minneapolis is still continuing, as Pope Francis appears to try to change the subject, to climate change and the like, to avoid the abuse scandal with his slow moving abuse commission led by the former canon lawyer for Boston’s infamous Cardinal Bernard Law. For more on the important Minneapolis developments, please see:
[startribune.com]
[mprnews.org]
[kstp.com]
[canonicalconsultation.com]
[whitehouse.gov]
[mprnews.org]
And in the UK, the expected major UK investigation into institutional child abuse, including int the Catholic Church, moves relentlessly forward. Please see:
[theguardian.com]
[channel4.com]
An ‘infallible” pope has been shown to be a “wishful thinking” strategy that has done more harm than good for both the 0.01% Catholic leadership, as well as most of the Catholic 99.99% majority. Papal infallibility will surely sink the Church unless it is rejected squarely, no matter what else Pope Francis does or tries to do. No pope can even hope to effectively curtail scandals without also both acknowledging that his predecessors erred and then correcting their errors. Leaders make mistakes, even popes. Only shortsighted fundamentalists refuse to acknowledge this.
Cleaning up the “mess in the house of cards”, as Pope Francis has so accurately described the current situation, is more than a 78 year old Pope Francis or any other person, even a younger one, can accomplish alone. In any event, decisions by “infallible papal fiats” cannot work in this day and age of the Internet and 24/7 media coverage. Francis is running out of time. That is very clear by now.
Pope Francis may resolve this critical issue finally in the Philippines or at October’s Final Synod or, most likely and appropriately, by means of an upcoming ecumenical council with full and equal participation of the 99.9 % Catholic laity (including women) that has been rumored by some to be begin as early as next year, perhaps in Buenos Aires, Manila or other appropriate locale far away from Rome preferably.
Incidentally, the pope often cheers before large audiences for the “little guy” against ruthless capitalists, and likely will in the Philippines. Yet, behind closed doors, Francis appears to rely often for key advice and support from, among others, Goldman Sachs’ investment banker types, “Big Oil” top alumni and assorted billionaire plutocrats, like FOX’s Rupert Murdoch, Mexico’s Carlos Slim and ex-Domino’s Pizza’s Tom Monaghan, usually males coincidentally.
Why is that? How much do economic power and financial considerations really matter to the pope when the camera is turned off? Do the families and friends of these wealthy advisers have ready access to effective contraception options? Does Pope Francis often seek women’s opinions? What do you think?
Pope Francis’ demonstrated talent at consciously employing ambiguity, that often pleases wishful thinking proponents of both sides of key Church issues, as well as some unprincipled media opportunists, will not likely work here. Tsunami or not, the pope will have to choose publicly between (A) his frequently declared preferential option to help the poor, based on Jesus’ Gospel message, and (B) his increasingly evident efforts to maximize papal power, via the infallibility myth and the like, and to protect his hierarchy as his main priority, based seemingly more on Machiavelli’s “The Prince” than on the Gospels.
Pope Francis’ power push depends significantly on (i) the modern papal myth of infallibility, now inextricably linked to the 1968 papal contraception ban, and (ii) on alliances with the rich and powerful who depend on the pope to push for increases in the worldwide Catholic birth rate that often generates more cheap labor and docile voters.
As every thinking adult, other than perhaps most celibate clerics, seems to know well in today’s rapidly changing world, more children increasingly means more, not less, poverty. Family planning is now a moral imperative for responsible couples, not a secular sin!
Babies are usually good for families, but more babies are sometimes worse, not better. More babies than couples can actually afford can permanently harm the babies, their existing families and their societies — these are empirical facts that no mystical papal smokescreen can hide. “Cheaper by the dozen” is pernicious romantic nonsense when applied to children.
Of course, more Catholic babies may provide the Vatican with more docile donors and manipulable voters to enhance papal financial and political power. Yet, as former Irish president Mary McAleese fairly noted, few celibate clerics change “nappies”.
Celibate clerics at the recent Synod have shown generally that they are clueless about how families really operate to survive in an unequal world dominated by selfish and ruthless plutocrats, possibly of the likes of some of Francis’ key private advisers.
The young poor among the 100 million plus Filipinos are increasing, with an estimated one-third of Filipino children still living in poverty, significantly higher than in many comparable non-Catholic countries that often have significantly lower birth rates and more productive economies. Why is that?
The pope recently signaled, in an interview (1/11/15) in the Italian daily La Stampa, what tsunami devastated Filipinos can expect to hear. Responding to a questions like whether the capitalist system needs more ethical guidance, Pope Francis indicated, per a National Catholic Reporter translation, in pertinent part:
(1) “Many times various heads of state and political leaders …. after my election as Bishop of Rome have spoken with me of this. They said: You religious leaders must help us; give us ethical indications … “;
(2) ” … the preferential choice for the poor ,,, has its origins in the Gospel and is documented already in the first centuries of Christianity … “;
(3) “I recognize that globalization has helped many people to rise from poverty, but it has condemned many others to hunger. It’s true that in absolute terms it grows world wealth, but it also increased the disparity and the new kinds of poverty … “;
(4) ” … What I notice is this system is maintained with the culture of waste, … at the center of the system there is not anymore man but money, … “;
(5) ” … It is that attitude that rejects children and old people, and now also affects young people. I have the impression that in the developed countries there are many millions of young people under 25 years that don’t have work … I have called them “nor-nor”, because they don’t study and they don’t work: they don’t study because they don’t have possibility to do so, don’t work because they can’t find it. … “; and
(6)” … but I would like to also remember that the culture of waste refuses children also with abortion. It strikes me the rates of birth {are}so low here in Italy: Like this you lose the link with the future. …”.
Predictably, but sadly, Pope Francis’ recent message here is to encourage Filipinos to pump up the birth rate, the last thing most Filipinos seem to need to do, or likely want to hear from the pope! Once again, “father” (the “Holy Father” no less), “knows best”, even though he is a celibate bachelor. Please see for more on the pope’s interview:
[ncronline.org]
With respect to the Philippines, the prophetic Yale educated theologian, Jamie Manson, has laid out pointedly and well the elements of the inconsistency in the basic papal message. She states: “As I have documented previously in NCR, the Catholic church in the Philippines spent 10 years in the {Philippine} Supreme Court blocking the implementation of a state-sponsored reproductive health bill. Although 82 percent of Filipinos say that “the choice of a family planning method is a personal choice of couples and no one should interfere with it,” the Filipino hierarchy pressed on until a modified and more limited version of the law went into effect earlier this year.Yet in all of the interviews I’ve seen with Cardinal Luis Tagle of Manila (a darling of some Catholic progressives) at the synod, I have not seen any reporter question him about contraception, the swelling population crisis in the Philippines, or the fact that Catholic Filipino families want access to contraception so they can feed their children and give them access to education.” Please see Jamie Manson’s valuable further remarks at:
[ncronline.org]
[ncronline.org]
As noted above, the foundation of today’s papal power strategy rests on the infallibility doctrine. In 1980 following the Vatican’s attack on Fr. Hans Kung (who taught at Tuebingen in Germany) mainly for questioning papal infallibility, Pope John Paul II in a letter to the German Bishops’ Conference reportedly wrote: “… I am convinced that the doctrine of infallibility is in a certain sense the key to the certainty with which the faith is confessed and proclaimed, as well as to the life and conduct of the faithful. For once the essential foundation is shaken or destroyed, the most basic truths of our faith likewise begin to break down …”. (My emphasis)
As discussed above, the conservative opposition to the 1966 papal commission created almost secretly a “counter-report” for Pope Paul VI. The misleadingly named “minority report” was reportedly endorsed by a commission member, the Archbishop of Cracow, Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II, who reportedly missed many of the birth control commission’s meetings. In this “minority report”, the future pope reportedly sanctioned these words:
“If it should be declared that contraception is not evil in itself, then we should have to concede frankly that … for half a century the [Holy] Spirit failed to protect Pius XI, Pius XII, and a large part of the Catholic hierarchy from a very serious error. This would mean that the leaders of the Church, acting with extreme imprudence, had condemned thousands of innocent human acts, forbidding, under pain of eternal damnation, a practice which would now be sanctioned. The fact can neither be denied nor ignored that these same acts would now be declared licit on the grounds of principles cited by the Protestants, which popes and bishops have either condemned or at least not approved.” My emphasis.
Because of the grave threat to papal infallibility and authority posed in the Vatican’s mind by the papal commission’s overwhelmingly approved recommendation to change Church teachings on birth control and permit the “pill”, it appears that Pope Paul VI rejected his own commission’s report, and, in effect, adopted the misnamed “minority report” instead.
In 1968, he issued his infamous encyclical,Humanae Vitae, in which he condemned almost every form of birth control as morally reprehensible. Pope Francis wants to make Paul VI a saint, which is ominous on the chances of reversing the ban on the “pill”. Once again, “saint making” appears to be just another papal propaganda tool.
Thus, as observed above, contraception became a serious threat to maintaining the principle of papal infallibility. The only way for Pope Francis to backtrack on the issue of contraception would be to admit error, thereby destroying the myth of a ” divinely sanctioned infallibility”, and possibly risking the loss of some papal authority and power.
The Vatican appears to believe, mistakenly in my view, that if the ban on contraception were to be rescinded, Vatican power would diminish. Obviously, then, the Vatican’s battle against contraception rests not really on solid moral or theological grounds, but almost solely on the Vatican’s misguided drive to survive as an influential political institution. Paradoxically, by failing to acknowledge papal error here and elsewhere, Pope Francis is actually weakening papal moral authority, the real source of papal power. Catholics can now quite readily now see through the mystical smokescreens.
NOTE TO READERS: I have set forth below links to some of my recent related essays and encourage you to click on to topics that may interest you. Please note that just below the links, I have included my current comprehensive overview entitled, “A Ray of Hope In A Crisis of Trust “, which I encourage you to peruse at your convenience. Thank you.
>>>>>>>>>>>>> CLICK ON These Topics To Read–>
12 Resolutions For Pope Francis in 2015
Abuse “Fix” Crawls, While Synod Slips
Can Pope Francis Save the Vatican ? Probably Not !
Cardinals Pell and O’Malley Show Limits of Reform
Ex-Bank Head Presses Pope, ex-Pope & Cardinal
Francis Admits Popes’ Mistakes. Will He Fix Them?
Francis Faces ‘Old Power/ New Sex’ Crises
Francis’ Breeding Policy Fails Kids, Women & Gay
Francis’ Synod, Wall Street, NCR, Crux, Nuns & Kids
Hillary Clinton vs. Pope Francis in 2015 ?
Need for US Inquiry into Child Abuse/ A. Blayse
New Cardinals? Any Women, Pope Francis?
Obama’s Nuns Win, But He Faces Vatican Flak
Pope Cools Down Abuse Team – NO Tom Doyle
Pope Francis Must Change Course Or Else
Pope Francis Overlooks Women as New Cardinals
Pope Francis Scolds Curia— What Now ?
Pope Francis, Trust and Secrecy: A Real Dilemma
Pope Francis, Vatican Officials and Machiavelli
Pope Needs Cardinals Kung & McAleese
Pope Pivots On Rumored Vatican Council III ?
Pope Shows That Church Needs Democracy Again
Pope’s Priority For Christmas 2014 ? Children or Clerics
Pope: Children Are Good & More Children Better?
SURVIVORS CHANGED HISTORY/ T. Doyle
The Beginning of the End of Vatican Scandals in 2015?
The Crisis Pope Francis Faces
The Likely Decline in Pope Francis’ Public Image
US Experts Question Pope Francis’ Strategy
Vatican Bank? Francis Must Shift Strategy Or Fail
Women vs. Pope, Adam’s Ribs Strike Back !
1. A Ray of Hope In A Crisis of Trust — A Holy Mess: Pope Francis says Catholics should “create a mess” to help him promote changes in the Catholic Church. The Catholic majority are pleased for now; although many are skeptical. Some see a bright ray of hope shining through the crisis of trust triggered by Church scandals. Others think the window of opportunity for hopeful light from Pope Francis will close soon if he is not prophetic and transparent. Indeed, some even think the Vatican’s current “holy mess” will be its final mess.
Yet, Francis has so far offered few indications about concrete changes he really wants. Many Church leaders seem fearful of any changes. Yet, many Catholics and others are finally pressing for permanent changes. They have by now seen Vatican misconduct up close and too often. They now also understand better that many of the Vatican’s frequently ambiguous, if not vague, basic biblical and historical sources supporting papal power have too often been overplayed, if not misused, in encyclicals and a Catechism, to justify supreme papal power . Significantly, these permanent changes, that the Catholic majority seeks in good conscience and good faith, may differ ultimately from what many in the Vatican now want. As the “infallible Supreme Pontiff” for millions of Catholics, Pope Francis has the best papal opportunity in many years, if not centuries, to fix the broken Catholic Church. This may also be the final papal opportunity to clean up the “holy mess”. Time will soon tell.
This crisis has led to one papal resignation already. Pope Francis appears for many reasons to be the Vatican’s best and last chance to lead on initiating overdue Church changes. Pressures beyond Vatican control can be expected to compel more severe changes if Francis fails to act effectively and transparently. This has already begun to happen with respect to Vatican finances, as a result of the continuing European governmental investigations of multiple misdeeds involving both the Vatican Bank and the Vatican’s own significant portfolio assets. Prospects for criminal prosecutions of Catholic Church officials have seemingly caused the Vatican to focus on overdue reforms in ways that earlier financial penalties and shameful publicity had rarely done before. As with corporate criminal executives worldwide, prosecution risk is generally a uniquely effective deterrent to future crimes by senior leaders.
Almost 150 years ago, facing a similar crisis, Pope Pius IX refused to initiate overdue changes to his arbitrary and ineffective leadership of his Kingdom of the Papal States in central Italy. His key misguided “fix” was to push to be declared “infallible” in July 1870. Two months later, he militarily lost the Kingdom completely to Italian nationalists. Traditional papal protectors like France and Austria-Hungary stood by and passively watched, unwilling to support further papal mismanagement and capriciousness. Will Pope Francis make a similar mistake like Pius IX did by misjudging his precarious position?
The Vatican no longer even has comparable powerful protectors. It is mostly on its own now in the international political arena, like Pius XI’s Vatican was by 1870. Popes since 1870 have counter culturally tried secretively to rule mainly as “semi-divine infallible” absolute monarchs with tightly controlled subordinate bishops worldwide in an increasingly democratic world now linked by an open Internet and an 24/7 worldwide free media. The Vatican is running out of time to adjust to current reality and may be forced to do so soon.
Building governmental pressures indicate currently that if the Vatican does not adopt key changes voluntarily and soon, the Vatican can be expected to be compelled to change involuntarily. This has recently already happened repeatedly, for example, in the financial area. Another recent example of increasing governmental pressure is the Australian national investigation into child abuse in religious organizations. It has already led to the Vatican changing both internal policies, and key leadership in Australia, including Cardinal George Pell, and Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Papal Nuncio, following a massive effort by government investigators. Similar investigations can be expected in other countries as well.
The Vatican likely will be unable to contain much longer the cumulative and growing pressure, both internal and external, for change. Well publicized Vatican scandals continue to proliferate before a steadily skeptical world audience that is unconvinced either by the Vatican’s limited efforts so far or by its many public relations diversions. Many Catholics and others are becoming more impatient about protecting innocent victims of continuing Vatican scandals and misguided policies — including millions of poor women, children, couples, divorced persons and gay folks. The building governmental pressures indicate increasingly that the Vatican can change voluntarily or, as has already repeatedly happened in the financial area generally and in the child protection area in Australia, the Vatican will be compelled to change involuntarily.
Significantly, the Vatican no longer benefits from the powerful international protection that had enabled the Vatican to avoid overdue changes for centuries. In the current world of democracies and a free press and Internet, the secretive Vatican is vulnerable. Neither the Vatican’s high priced consultants, lawyers and lobbyists, nor the Vatican’s opportunistic financial elite allies, who seek Vatican backing to protect the income inequality status quo that benefits them so disproportionately, are hardly comparable substitutes for the earlier military backing of the Holy Roman Emperor and other powers. These powers had effectively protected the Vatican for centuries from demands for change. No more.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis’ Synod strategy has pulled back the curtain on the Vatican’s fallible and incoherent management structure and helped explain why ex-Pope Benedict had no real choice but to resign. In our 24/7 media world, as the Church’s scandal and mismanagement dominoes fall, a further domino effect will likely take over beyond the Vatican’s power to control it. Fear of this effect has likely contributed to provoking some of the strong opposition that Pope Francis is facing among many in the Church’s leadership.
Pope Francis acts at times like a radicalized realist. He is pressing forward relentlessly on a novel path to change. When necessary, he is even bypassing or sidelining fearful and entrenched opponents and factions. His opponents often overlook the many risks that presently exist in the Vatican’s vulnerable predicament. Pope Francis is evidently well aware of these risks. At times, some of his opponents prefer “to play their fruitless fiddles while Rome burns”.
And of course, money is usually lurking in these factions’ approaches to changes. For example, the German and US bishops seem to have basically different approaches to changes like permitting communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. German bishops depend mainly on a per capita government subsidy, presently totally more than $6 billion a year, that pays the bishops more if more Catholics remain on the government registry; hence the German bishops’ inclusive approach to divorced and remarried Catholics and their families. US bishops, on the other hand, depend significantly on fewer major donors who reward the bishops’ ability to draw out fundamentalists to vote for low-tax right wing US political candidates. These fundamentalists oppose most changes, especially those relating to traditional marriage. Not surprisingly, US bishops tend to oppose changes to traditional marriage sacramental rules. As with understanding approaches to other changes, sometimes it pays to follow the money.
Significantly, the Catholic majority intuitively understands that these risks generated by the present crisis, especially from building governmental pressures on the Vatican, have paradoxically also generated an unprecedented opportunity to restore the Church to an earlier condition — to a Church that Jesus’ first disciples would have recognized as completely consistent with Jesus’ Gospel message of love of God and of neighbors, even of enemies. This will be a welcoming Church again that satisfies the needs of both conservative and progressive Catholics.
Well publicized Catholic Church scandals have triggered a unique situation — both an unprecedented crisis and an unexpected opportunity. This crisis (A) erodes Catholic trust in light of the longstanding gap between the Vatican’s words and deeds, (B) invites outside governmental intervention at a time when the Vatican lacks powerful international protectors like it had for centuries, and (C) underscores the urgent need for key changes in Church structure and doctrine. The crisis has also contributed, as indicated, to one pope’s unanticipated resignation and to the replacement pope’s unpredictable revolution.
Before his 80th birthday in barely two years, Pope Francis can successfully seize the opportunity, follow his conscience and apply his unique status, forceful temperament and popular appeal. Most importantly, he can declare “infallibly” key changes. By then, he will have received new input from his two advisory Synods of Bishops. He has already been enlightened by his valuable almost two years of experience as pope. He now also is unhampered by his prior pastoral positions and unfettered by his earlier ideological constraints as an obedient cardinal, bishop and Jesuit. If Francis fails to act effectively soon, the consequences will likely be quite negative for the leadership of the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis can accomplish much if he wants to and finds the wisdom and courage to do so. Equally important, it seems unlikely any of his successors will get a more propitious opportunity in the foreseeable future to adopt long overdue changes. It may be now or never for Pope Francis and the Vatican.
Any needed changes that Pope Francis leaves uncompleted, whether by choice or circumstances, Catholics can then push to complete soon thereafter, with or without Vatican support. Catholics can be expected to do so, given the current Catholic majority’s momentum and mounting democratic governmental pressures. The Catholic majority can expect help in effecting these changes from powerful forces, outside the Church structure, that are now pressing harder for key Vatican changes, like greater accountability and transparency.
The Making of the Unique Present Crisis: The Catholic Church is in the throes of its worst crisis since the Reformation. Vatican leaders in the 16th Century, aided by powerful outside military protectors, had mainly evaded making overdue structural changes, and their successors also managed with outside protection to avoid such changes mostly during the four centuries since.
Nevertheless, Church changes are badly needed now and the Vatican no longer has any dominant outside protectors willing to help it avoid the changes. The changes cannot be deferred much longer if the Vatican wants to avoid both further Church decline and splintering into competing factions and constant interference from outside governments. Pope Francis’ confident and bold approach, and the Vatican’s evident need to avoid further negative repercussions from the current crisis, are both generating some hope now, as well as creating what appears to be the best opportunity since the Reformation for the worldwide Catholic majority to press the Vatican successfully for key overdue changes.
According to Augustine: “God judged it better to bring good out of evil, than to suffer no evil to exist.” Catholics are now pondering whether God will soon bring some good changes out of this evil crisis, likely with some help from either Pope Francis or the worldwide Catholic majority or some international investigators or some combination of all three.
There are now hopeful indications (A) that the Catholic Church may restore some of its management structure to its earliest consensual, bottom up and distributed form, from its current coercive, top down and hierarchical form, and (B) that some questionable traditional Church teachings may change to fit mercifully the actual lived experience of sincere Catholics and to conform honestly to current biblical, historical and scientific scholarship, all with or without the Vatican’s affirmative assistance.
This scandals underlying the crisis have deeply discouraged millions of concerned Catholics, yet many of them now also see a new ray of hope. This hope springs less from Pope Francis’ skillful public relations efforts than from the likelihood that the present crisis will necessarily help accelerate Church changes. Moreover, some of these changes are ones that the usually silent Catholic majority can and likely will play a key role in bringing about. This would be a refreshing change in itself for the Catholic majority, a change from only being able to react passively to misguided top down Vatican decisions dictated by a celibate, aging, conflicted and self perpetuating all male leadership.
It appears likely now that the Pope Francis will soon make, or be induced by outside pressures to make, major structural and other changes — changes that the Vatican had been able to resist making for centuries under earlier better positioned popes. Powerful governmental, legal and media forces are now pressing from the outside for changes, whether the presently weakened Vatican wants changes or not.
While Pope Francis mostly can only play the bad cards that ex-Pope Benedict dealt him, he can use both his papal authority over bishops and the Catholic majority and this building outside pressure, enhanced by the power of his personal popularity and his strong will, to help convince his entrenched Vatican opposition that voluntary Church changes are more in their interest than the otherwise inevitable involuntary changes could be expected to be.
Paradoxically, these anticipated changes can also help restore the Catholic Church to one that is much closer, in essential structure and compassionate spirit, than the current Church is to the Church that Jesus’ earliest disciples, including prominently some women, left behind for over three centuries.
Pope Francis has brought fresh hopes after centuries of papal evasions. Martin Luther, an Augustinian friar, by 1520 had sought similar changes to an earlier Vatican bureaucracy then slithering through major scandals. Only military protection initially from the Holy Roman Emperor ultimately saved, for another 350 years until 1870, the Vatican’s centuries old Kingdom of the Papal States from many of the religious wars, internal divisions and radical reforms that followed Luther’s revolt. But Vatican scandals and structural shortcomings continued mostly as unresolved problems.
The usually well positioned papacy generally remained unchanged structurally after the Reformation until the popes’ imperial protectors faded by 1870 and then finally disappeared in the First World War. This was almost 1,600 years after the powerful Roman Emperor Constantine in the Fourth Century first sought, often in practice by threats and bribes, to redirect the early Catholic Church leadership to become part of his imperial bureaucracy. Constantine’s and his successor’s imperial designs still infuse the current Vatican’s coercive and top down leadership structure.
In 1870, Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) lost his last major monarchical protector due to the Franco-Prussian War. Pius IX then, without a strong outside protector, promptly lost the Kingdom of the Papal States finally on September 20, 1870 to a direct military assault on the Vatican by Italian nationalists. Both the Vatican and the Italians suffered fatalities. Two months prior to this assault, Pius IX had desperately tried to offset some of the projected negative effects of the Vatican’s expected military and political defeats. He sought to salvage some papal prestige on July 18, 1870, by being declared infallible at the First Vatican Council (Vatican I) that then soon ended prematurely due mainly to the military risks.
A new era of “semi-divine Supreme Pontiffs” thus began in 1870 and still continues under Pope Francis today, as he presses to solidify, at least temporarily, his extensive power over the Vatican bureaucracy, the Curia, as well as over the world’s bishops.
The powerful prestige of infallibility has been the keystone of papal power from 1870 until now. Papal infallibility, ironically, has also been the tragic papal flaw. Concerns for preserving a claim to being infallible have, it seems, prevented politically insecure popes from making long overdue changes out of fear of appearing to be fallible and, yes, a mere mortal.
This almost obsessive papal concern has been quite evident, for example, in the continuing papal opposition to contraception, mainly based on outdated natural law philosophy and medieval physiology, despite the overwhelming contrary witness in good conscience of the Catholic majority, and the latest strong and contrary evidence from natural science and modern philosophy.
Incidentally, the Vatican’s opposition to family planning seems to be a “win win” proposition for the Catholic leadership and a “lose lose” situation for couples. especially with other children, who cannot afford more children financially or emotionally. From the Vatican’s perspective, if Catholic babies survive and thrive, they can then become potential future Church donors and docile voters to enhance the Vatican’s position in bargains with desperate vote seeking political forces. If the babies do not thrive, they become their parents’ or society’s problems, not the Vatican’s to be sure.
Nevertheless, the Vatican’s strong pro-pregnancy opposition to contraception is unlikely to generate at current birthrates enough new Catholic babies to offset the Church’s escalating exodus among the practicing Catholic majority. This ongoing net decline in practicing Catholics is further eroding the Vatican’s already declining political influence and financial resources.
Ironically, the more that recent popes press their opposition to positive ongoing human advances like pharmaceutical contraception, that enable couples, especially poor women, to plan their families, the less infallible they appear to be to more Catholics. The present crisis, exacerbated by the disarray among the pope and some cardinals and bishops exhibited at the recent Vatican Synod that ironically had been intended to curtail part of this crisis, also has put unsustainable additional weight on the already weak claim to papal infallibility.
For almost 150 years until now, popes have been shrewdly able, despite the loss by 1870 of their actual Kingdom in central Italy, to maneuver politically, diplomatically and financially to retain some of their international influence, operational independence, considerable wealth and legal immunity, free of international laws and foreign restraints. Are the Vatican’s unique international status and contrived legal immunity claim both now about to collapse in the present crisis? Yes, it appears that the Vatican’s unique status and legal immunity are both likely facing collapse soon enough, no matter what Pope Francis now does.
Many of the problems Luther initially noted in 1517 remained unresolved even after Vatican I in 1870, and still remain unresolved. These include Luther’s issues with the Vatican’s top down, coercive and unaccountable Renaissance structure and with recent popes’ historically and biblically questionable, if not idolatrous, claim of unaccountable absolute papal power. Vatican I was terminated abruptly and prematurely due mainly to the military risks, before the relationship of bishops and the Catholic majority to the newly proclaimed infallible popes could be addressed fully. Pius XI and many of his successors, through Pope Benedict XVI (2005-2013), have at times used this uncompleted and unexpected result for almost 150 years to extend papal power over bishops and the Catholic majority.
These continuing problems remain after (A) unsuccessful Vatican efforts prior to 1945 to seek favorable and special political arrangements with powerful leaders, such as with the Fascist dictators of Italy, Germany and Spain, (B) numerous Vatican efforts since 1945 to solidify in many countries favorable arrangements with various powerful political, financial and media elites, and (C) significant and still uncompleted and frustrated reform efforts from 1962 to 1965 at the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II).
Most significantly, there are no longer any Holy Roman Emperors, or any other powerful monarchs, dictators or even democratically elected leaders, who appear willing to save the Vatican from facing the international legal and political consequences of its seeming sins and harmful policies. On the contrary, outside governments are already currently and forcefully pressing the Vatican firmly on its financial misconduct. Moreover, these outside forces are now also pressing hard, including through UN committees and national investigation commissions, on other Vatican misconduct, including facilitating priest child abuse.
The current crisis paradoxically presents all Catholics worldwide with an unprecedented, even hopeful, opportunity to resolve longstanding problems, some that even predate Luther. Whether the Vatican will on its own initiative seize this opportunity positively or will imprudently wait, like Pius IX did in 1870, (A) to be invaded, now by Italian, Australian and other government investigators and prosecutors, and (B) to be forced to accept the latest geopolitical reality, remains to be seen.
Catholics believe that God providentially guides their Church in mysterious ways. Some even wonder if God is not using this crisis as an opening for Church structural reforms overdue for centuries. Catholics increasingly are losing trust in their top leadership and want effective changes now. Many Catholics are curtailing their donations or just leaving the Church. Others are remaining nominally, but opting out of many Church rituals and doctrines for themselves and their children. And many younger Catholics are at best just indifferent about participation in a seemingly out of touch organization run, in effect from all appearances, as an all male absolute monarchy for the benefit of a few.
The well publicized Church scandals include clerical sexual misconduct and widespread child abuse, as well as financial corruption and excesses — some longstanding and pervasive. As mentioned above, this crisis paradoxically may offer Catholics some hope and the best opportunity since the Reformation to restore the Church to the consensual, bottom up and distributed management structure that Jesus’ first disciples, prominently including women, originally left behind for centuries.
Catholics overwhelmingly want leaders they can trust, which essentially means leaders who are accountable, not absolute, and who act transparently, not secretively. Given the Catholic Church’s pervasive worldwide influence and its universal potential as a strong public force, and counterweight to non-religious leaders, for either good or evil, the issue of how the Catholic Church is structured matters to all the world’s citizens, and to their political leaders as well.
Governments worldwide are responding more actively to citizen complaints and media pressure about these Church scandals by investigating and prosecuting clerical crimes being revealed. Catholics elect and influence their political leaders, who in turn can influence Church leaders, who currently remain completely free of any democratic oversight by the Catholic majority.
At present, the pope is still the last word on almost all matters concerning the Church and its leadership and laws, even on matters that impact the overall society like access to contraception and protection of children. The pope, as Supreme Pontiff, is purportedly accountable to nobody else, which is at the heart of the present crisis. Making sure no man is above the law is the modern antidote to the ailment of modern popes who seek to be, and to operate as, Supreme Pontiff without accountability.
Citizens worldwide can be expected steadily and increasingly to encourage their political leaders to press the Vatican for major Church structural reforms, especially by these leaders enacting and enforcing vigorously civil laws against Catholic leaders who commit crimes. This legal process, especially prosecutions of alleged crimes, will very likely, if not inevitably, lead to the outside imposition of Church structural reforms in the near term if the Vatican fails to adopt the reforms on its own initiative.
Continually hard pressed Vatican leaders really have no alternative, as earlier European absolute monarchs in France, Germany, Italy and elsewhere painfully learned, other than to submit to independent oversight by the Catholic majority.
Meanwhile, the Vatican is risking the division of the Church into numerous splinter cults and the incarceration of some of its leaders for crimes related to the sexual and financial scandals, as the Catholic hierarchy wastes precious time at Synods debating arcane theological topics like graduality.
This crisis for the “99.99% Catholic faithful majority” appears to be mainly about TRUST. For many of them, it is mostly about losing trust in the “0.01% Catholic leadership minority”, given the leadership’s frequently flawed and unaccountable management and the scandalous and repetitive misbehavior of too many of them.
By contrast, the crisis for the leadership minority appears to be mainly about SURVIVAL. For many cardinals, bishops and priests, this crisis seems too often to be largely about trying to save at all costs the current top down and coercive Church structure that has supported and rewarded many of them so handsomely.
The present crisis has already led to unintended negative consequences — even to unprecedented and growing challenges to worldwide Catholicism, including: (A) a leadership challenge, to the Pope’s ethical authority and doctrinal infallibility as the “last word”; (B) a political challenge, to the Vatican’s modern immunity from outside governmental oversight and to its opportunistic support of plutocratic political promoters;(C) a financial challenge, to the Vatican’s long term financial viability and to its self interested arrangements with selective financial, oil and media moguls; and (D) a competitive challenge, to the Catholic Church’s prospects in its continuing competition with other Christian and world religions, especially Islam, and even with non-religious secularism.
These accelerating challenges surely have influenced, if not at times dictated, the Vatican’s recent tactics, and even its public style on many issues. This historically is almost a new papal experience, since modern popes mostly had operated secretly as near absolute monarchs for centuries. It is becoming increasingly evident, however, that popular popes alone are insufficient to resolve the crisis — the Vatican can no longer defer confronting these challenges fully, honestly, transparently and promptly, even if they would rather defer them as recent popes often have. Both internal Church political factions, and external governmental legal forces, are increasingly pressing for greater papal accountability, sooner rather than later. Deferral is no longer a viable papal alternative.
Jesus left a short, simple and revolutionary oral message of “Good News” about a caring and trustworthy God. Jesus, it appears, thought this message could be passed on by word of mouth by his usually uneducated disciples. 2,000 years later the oral message has been buried seemingly under millions of written words by thousands of scribes that have obscured Jesus’ direct simplicity, often to advance the personal agenda of those overseeing the scribes with their countless and opportunistic “explications” of what Jesus really meant.
Was Jesus naive or foolish? And is his originally oral message essentially that simple? Even a quick perusal of the New Testament indicates Jesus’ core message is simple and direct, especially when stripped of some of the heavily philosophical and selectively imposed explications in Latin and Greek. This often stultifying and self serving explication process was most recently illustrated amply by the Catechism of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Will the Vatican now finally begin to try to remove the self serving papal gloss and counterproductive clerical crust that have for many centuries obscured Jesus’ radical and revolutionary Good News — to trust in a caring God and to love one’s neighbors, even enemies, as oneself? Or will the the Catholic leadership minority once again futilely try to contain the current crisis within its latest hierarchical structure?
Will the Church leadership minority now restore its management structure to the early Church’s consensual and distributed network of bishops accountable to the faithful majority from the current coercive, top down and unaccountable model? And will the leadership minority now restore its general Church-state policy to Jesus’ earliest approach of peaceful coexistence with political leaders and prophetic witness for the poor and disadvantaged from the current Vatican approach that seeks opportunistic financial, legal and other leadership preferences in exchange for papal political support?
Hopefully, the coercive and top down Vatican will finally soon restore, or be required to restore, some meaningful consensual and bottom up power to the Catholic faithful majority. Anything less will merely be at best a temporary glue on a crumbling structure. 500 years after Luther had been more than enough time to fix the structure, but the Vatican has failed, and is continuing to fail, to do so. It will continue to fail unless and until it submits to effective and transparent oversight by the Catholic majority, as almost all other absolute monarchies in history have already learned, often the hard way following violent revolutions.
A consensual and bottom up Church management approach had been a common norm in the Church that Jesus’ disciples, including women, left behind for the first three centuries. That was before the decisive top down takeover, in effect, of the Church hierarchy that began under the powerful Roman Emperor Constantine and his imperial successors. Constantine’s top down and coercive Fourth Century legacy has survived in Rome in key respects, and still fundamentally overshadows Vatican decision making and operations. This must and will change, perhaps much sooner than the Vatican presently anticipates.
As indicated with Pius IX’s underestimation of Italian nationalists, and Pius XI’s and Pius XII’s overestimation of Mussolini’s and Hitler’s protections, whatever else infallibility encompasses, international politics is evidently excluded. Time will soon tell if the current Vatican leaders are any wiser than their modern predecessors were.
Millions of disrespected couples, women, children, divorced and gay persons and other innocent and marginalized victims of the Vatican’s current unchristian policies deserve the initiation of positive Church changes, as soon as practicable. Moreover, the beneficial worldwide potential for Jesus’ simple message of loving God and one’s neighbor, including enemies, needs to be freed of the blinders and constraints that too many popes have opportunistically and selectively imposed on it for centuries. Not only were modern popes “Prisoners of the Vatican” unnecessarily. So was Jesus.
It is important in my judgment that citizens of the world, especially Catholics, weigh in now strongly and often, and try to influence the potential Vatican outcomes. Since the Vatican operates mostly secretively and often covers its real objectives with frequent and well funded media diversions, I have at times tried to draw my best inferences and projected what seemed to me to be likely outcomes, in light of the evidence available to me and my long legal experience. Some, of course, will object, but this appears necessary to assess the actions of an organization that still too often is shown to be dissembling considerably.
My approach is intended to assist concerned readers in acting timely and proactively to advance structural and other reforms, and not just reacting defensively, after the fact, to papal faits accomplis. It is the Church of all Catholics, including the 99.99% faithful majority, and not just of the 0,01% leadership minority, and all need to weigh in now as their situations permit.
The present crisis presents major risks for the Catholic Church’s leadership minority. Providentially, it also presents an unprecedented opportunity for the Catholic majority to recover their Church from the clerical clique that centuries ago hijacked Jesus’ message. By recovering their Church, Catholics can then re-direct it and unleash the full potential of Jesus’ simple message of love of God and neighbor to a world that at times seems eager to hear that needed message of hope and peace.
The Current Unprecedented Situation:A free media in a steadily more accountable world is pulling back the Vatican’s dark curtain letting all see the scandals, up close and personal. Luther, as mentioned above, had complained loudly about similar scandals as early as 1517. Yet, it took 500 years for the many misdeeds of Pope Alexander VI and other Renaissance clerics to be featured in several “Borgia TV Series”. Today, the latest “Secrets of the Vatican” are widely reported almost simultaneously, as in a recent PBS documentary by that name covering several current Vatican scandals.
Moreover, Renaissance popes were protected by a powerful Holy Roman Emperor whose last successor lost power a century ago. Politically and militarily, popes since the end of the Second World War in 1945 have been dependent for protection and support mainly on Western democratically elected leaders.
Even now after 1700 years, however, Constantine’s Fourth Century legacy of an imperial top down and coercive leadership structure remains influential in Rome, centuries after most of the world had rejected unaccountable monarchs. European monarchical protection of the Vatican diminished after 1850 and disappeared completely by 1918, replaced soon thereafter with de facto alliances with Fascist dictators in Italy and Germany and Spain until Italy and Germany’s defeat by 1945.
As late as 1903, significantly, the Austria-Hungary Emperor reportedly vetoed a top contender in a papal election leading to the election of Pope Pius X. That was the last election prior to the start of World War I, in which the Austria Hungary Empire was dismembered, in effect, ending imperial veto power in papal elections. That veto power, however, had sometimes worked positively to restrain elections of some less dependable papal candidates.
The defeat of the Fascist powers by 1945 has contributed to popes subsequently having almost to scramble opportunistically at times to make arrangements on a local basis with many countries for political protection and financial advantage for the Vatican and its bishops and priests. These papal arrangements have often been negotiated with local dictators and wealthy elites, as well as with some democratically elected leaders seeking local papal political support as opportunities arose in particular countries, most noticeably Pope John Paul II’s close ties with US President Ronald Reagan and his right wing Republican successors, including President George W. Bush.
Popes Benedict XVI and Pope Francis continued to maintain close ties with right wing US Republicans and continue to provide them with political support through the US bishops and otherwise. This is reportedly already underway for the 2016 US presidential election. Popes tend to be more pragmatic than ideological when under considerable pressures as in the present crisis.
With the unrelenting spotlight that the 24/7 modern media now shines, the timeless “philosopher king” leadership question of Plato’s Republic now arises in Rome publicly and dramatically: Can any man, even a popular pope, be trusted honestly to face a major crisis of trust like the Vatican is facing, and to set important policies for over a billion people, unless he is truly accountable to others and also decides key issues transparently?
Given the current pope’s age, the further question arises, are his successors also to be trusted without accountability? What have Catholics learned from the sordid history of bad popes, as well as from the revelations of current scandals that seem at times to be as sordid as the earlier scandals? Given the present crisis, the Vatican’s procedures and processes, now and in the future, in evaluating and adopting reforms are almost as important as the potential substantive reforms themselves.
Pope Francis had little choice, it appears, but to try to contain this crisis of trust, after suddenly, in the midst of this crisis, unexpectedly succeeding the first pope to resign in almost 600 years. Francis’ Synods of Bishops strategy, his ongoing sophisticated and well funded media campaign, and his efforts to shore up favorable arrangements with some powerful world leaders of government, finance and media, all appear to be key parts of his strategy to contain this crisis.
The Vatican under the current pope and his successor surely must soon either “lead and act”, or they will most likely be compelled to “follow and react”, by internal and external pressure. Neither this present crisis of trust, nor the resulting challenges, can be avoided much longer to any significant extent.
Some Relevant Recent History: The Vatican under Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) had aligned itself in the Second World War (1939-1945) with the once seemingly invincible, but losing Fascist dictators, Hitler and Mussolini and their “neutral” ally, Franco. Pius XII had been born into a Roman family that had been immersed earlier in the monarchical Papal States. He served for almost two decades under the autocratic Pope Pius XI (1921-1939). A top down coercive leadership must have seemed natural to Pius XII.
Nevertheless, it had become increasingly clear by Mussolini’s removal in July 1943 that Western autocratic structures were losing to Western democratic structures and that major Catholic Church reforms were sorely needed, if not inevitable. By September 1943, Pius XII was endorsing modern biblical scholarship, which eventually planted the seeds that undermine some papal claims as Supreme Pontiff.
Pius XII’s less well born immediate successor, Pope John XXIII (1958-1963), an experienced diplomat and church historian, knew change was inevitable in the postwar situation populated by powerful Western democracies and decided boldly in early 1959, after only a short time as pope, that major Church reforms were badly needed and even overdue. This was clearly evident, especially after the defeat of the Vatican’s powerful European allies, Italy and Germany, and the takeover by 1950 of Eastern European Catholic countries like Poland, Hungary, Croatia and the Baltic States, by the Soviets.
John XXIII must have also understood that as an “infallible pope” that he could ultimately control the key outcomes of the Second Vatican Council (1962- 1965), or “Vatican II”. He called for the Council in 1959 less than a decade after Pius XII had in 1950 exercised the ultimate papal “infallibility power” in declaring Mary’s Assumption. That dramatic papal exercise appears to have been a desperate attempt to flex his “semi-divine infallibility” power after suffering the defeat of his Fascist allies and in the face at the time of the rise of Soviet power under Stalin.
So John XXIII could risk letting the 2,500 plus Vatican II bishops talk with some freedom at Vatican II. As Pope, he would still have the last say. Pope Francis seems to have a similar understanding that he has the last word no matter what his current Synods may decide or however the Synod bishops may vote. For modern popes since the 1870’s declaration of papal infallibility, councils like Vatican II and Synods of Bishops are ultimately only advisory. This positions Francis to act decisively on Synod Bishops’ advice and otherwise.
Unfortunately, John XXIII died in 1963 before he could implement many essential reforms as he may have planned to do. John had served in key diplomatic posts directly under two autocratic popes, Pius XI and Pius XII. These popes had enjoyed until 1945 powerful Fascist protection and support. John XXIII evidently understood well that the days of unaccountable autocratic popes protected by conservative European monarchs or Fascist dictators were over, especially with the postwar expansion of democratically accountable governments in many Catholic countries, including Italy and Germany.
John XXIII in January 1959 had suddenly, unexpectedly and almost haphazardly announced publicly his reform intentions and initiated the preparation for the massive 2,500 plus bishops’ Second Vatican Council. His old friend, Paul VI, who was an experienced Vatican bureaucrat and his successor, reportedly thought in 1959 that John was stirring up a “hornets’ nest”. Similarly, Pope Francis appears intentionally now to be “creating a mess” with his unusual Synods. Undeterred, however, by John XXIII’s unexpected boldness and realizing that a retrenchment opportunity had been presented by John’s death early in the Council’s proceedings, the Vatican’s “hornets” reacted, specifically some of its entrenched bureaucrats like powerful Cardinal Ottaviani (1890-1979), and their preferred choices of subsequent Curial accommodating Popes, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
These Vatican bureaucrats like Ottaviani and their successors, in effect, sidelined several key Vatican II era reforms for a half century with their “reform of the reform”, generally, a rhetorical euphemism for obstruction. These sidelined reforms included those relating to papal power sharing, married priests, contraception and even priest child abuse.
These and other inevitable reforms can no longer be sidelined by the Vatican without risking dire consequences, given the escalating internal and external pressures at present on the Vatican. Maintaining, at times, the almost medieval Vatican status quo is no longer a papal option, as it may earlier have been for Pope Francis’ predecessors.
This current crisis is now forcing the Vatican to try harder (A) to defend its exclusive doctrinal authority, (B) to maximize its wealth and solidify its allies among powerful national elites, and (C) to counter its religious competitors, as it tries try to survive reasonably intact.
After a half century of frequent papal resistance and Vatican bureaucratic diversions that thwarted key elements of John XXIII’s and Vatican II’s reform approach, Pope Francis appears to be seeking to resume some of what John XXIII had tried to initiate. But Francis may not be doing enough, soon enough, as he approaches his eightieth birthday in two years.
Many Catholics’ mistrust has now even led some of the Catholic 99.99% publicly to question the Vatican’s selective interpretation and application of Jesus’ simple Gospel message of love of God and neighbor. The Vatican’s opportunistic approach to the Gospels had earlier been at least widely tolerated, if not accepted by many Catholics. Now even at the initial Vatican Synod of the Family in October 2014, a significant number of bishops selected by conservative prior popes even voted against several traditional Vatican positions. Such episcopal independence had been scarce since 1980 under the prior two popes.
The Vatican dam has burst under the pressure of the current scandals and the the floods being released will not likely by contained by anything short of a return to the consensual, bottom up approach that prevailed in the Church and that Jesus’ disciples, including some women, left behind for over three centuries. The current coercive and top down papal management structure is not likely to contain the floods much longer, without major reforms, including especially power sharing with an independent Catholic majority. Cardinals and bishops who resist this pressure will likely be swept away by the flood of reforms, as happened with Cardinal Raymond Burke even before Pope Francis strengthened his authority to remove bishops.
Strategic Alternatives and Assumptions: Any serious and objective assessment of this current Church crisis must consider at the outset several key questions. How is Pope Francis, after almost two years as pope, addressing this current crisis, as well as the related challenges to the Pope’s moral leadership and doctrinal authority, to the Vatican’s political and financial positions, and to the Catholic Church’s competitive advantage that this crisis has dramatically and unexpectedly provoked? What are Francis’ strategic options to resolve the crisis and which strategy has he selected? Is his selected strategy based on valid assumptions and truthful analysis? What are the likely outcomes from this crisis for the Vatican?
The Expanding Crisis and Interplay of Related Challenges: The current Catholic Church crisis, and the four challenges the crisis has provoked, have been occasioned by almost unending scandals These scandals involve priest child abuse, bishop misconduct and financial corruption. The yet uncontrolled scandals have caused the ongoing crisis, while the insatiable 24/7 media cycle and the Internet are accelerating it non-stop.
The scandal fallout is even leading many Catholics to question the previously accepted assumption that “The Holy Father knows best.” Basic questions now arise about infallible papal authority, as well as the Vatican’s hierarchical structure and unquestioned control of biblical and moral theology, especially regarding sexual and gender matters.
Pope Francis indicated as the new pope at the World Youth Congress in July 2013 that he wanted a “mess” to stimulate change, and now he has one he helped create. He cannot now avoid confronting and attempting to defuse the expanding crisis, since it has unleashed unstoppable international legal and political responses. Previously, modern popes could discuss some pressing issues, while also deferring other important issues, and then sit on or even avoid the implications of these discussions, even for a half century as with some of the key issues discussed in the 1960’s during the Second Vatican Council period, such as married priests, power sharing among bishops and contraception.
No more! With the pressure from the current crisis increasing, the Vatican can no longer just table these issues, and must address them now, along with additional significant issues, like (A) holding bishops accountable to the 99.9% faithful majority, (B) ordaining women priests, (C) celebrating gay marriages, (D) welcoming divorced and remarried Catholics at Mass, and (E) protecting children.
These scandals in today’s wide open media world have created unprecedented reputational, political, financial and competitive risks and also generated related challenges for the Vatican. One pope has already resigned under pressure, the first to do so in almost 600 years. Many tough questions, rarely asked earlier, are now proliferating rapidly and are being raised constantly and publicly. The days of popes on pedestals are over permanently, notwithstanding the rapid acceleration of Pope Francis’ new pope saint making spree as part of his crisis response.
Will Pope Francis be next to resign under similar pressure? Who will succeed him? How many Vatican officials are now being investigated by outside government prosecutors? Could the Vatican financially go broke, as over a dozen US dioceses and religious orders already have, under the weight of rising scandal related legal costs and declining donations and subsidies? Will even more Catholics now leave the Church seeking greener pastures and truer shepherds?
Until recently, the Vatican’s decades’ old strategy aimed simultaneously and defensively at protection and preservation. Protecting, as the Vatican’s highest priority, its top leaders from governmental legal accountability, has meant employing media management tactics with help, it appears from billionaire media masters and seeking opportunistic arrangements with powerful political leaders and wealthy financial barons.
Preserving Vatican wealth and membership statistics, both to maximize its eroding income worldwide and to reverse declining Catholic birth and retention rates in key countries, has meant continuing to pursue a “pro billionaire” fundraising approach and a “pro-birth’ population policy. This population policy had been earlier declared in Pope Pius XI’s 1930 anti-birth control papal encyclical occasioned by both the rising threat of atheistic Soviet communism against a declining Western European birthrate and the military ambitions of Pius XI’s key protector, Mussolini. Today, the Vatican’s pro-baby policy appears directed at the Vatican’s near obsession with the threat of radical Islam and Muslims’ high birth rate.
The Vatican’s defensive instruments of power currently include (A) endlessly quoting in Vatican public relations releases from Jesus’ appealing message of brotherly love, while avoiding the message too often in actual Vatican actions, (B) constantly fronting a smiling “semi-divine infallible pope”, preferably hugging babies, (C) shrewdly managing a self interested, obedient and self perpetuating hierarchy, (D) carefully applying its significant worldwide wealth advantage, and (E) tightly controlling its considerable political influence in key countries, like the USA and Germany.
The major current Church challenges, on top of the present scandal crisis, are:
(A) A leadership challenge — diminishing papal authority and declining adherents, as millions of older Catholics are leaving the Church, many due the Vatican’s rigid sexual policies and its mismanagement of the scandals, while many younger Catholics are similarly disaffected and are increasingly marrying in non-Church ceremonies, are having and baptizing fewer Catholic babies, and are even avoiding or deferring the early introduction of their children to the Church’s formative indoctrination process associated with First Communion/First Confession;
(B) A political challenge — to the Vatican’s modern immunity from outside governmental oversight and to the Vatican’s opportunistic arrangements with plutocratic political promoters ;
(C) A financial challenge — declining personal donations and governmental subsidies while facing unending legal expenses and litigation penalties — fewer Catholics are donating, while billions in scandal related expenses are still being incurred, as more dioceses go broke and bankrupt and more Churches and schools are closed and sold off; and
(D) A competitive challenge — increasing competition from other faiths and from secularism, ranging from Christian pentecostals, to Islamic converts, to the growing category of “nones”, unaffiliated with any faith group.
Many of the world’s billion Catholics worry increasingly about the future of their scandal infected Church. While many millions still support the Catholic Church devoutly, millions of others, including women, children, poor couples, divorced and remarried, gay folks and even non-Catholics, suffer under Vatican policies that often seem unchristian and unnecessary.
Pope Francis must currently confront this crisis and these challenges. He needs a comprehensive strategy to do so. His individual actions cannot really be assessed adequately or intelligently, except in the context of his overall strategy.
Strategic Alternatives Presently Available to the Vatican: Pope Francis has given many Catholics new hope for a Church cure, for positive changes and for overdue reforms. Recent developments make clear that major changes for the papal monarchy are underway and that more are coming. When and how the newest changes may come surely raise complicated questions that demand responses, even if “final answers” are yet unavailable.
Some Catholic Church changes may come voluntarily and others involuntarily, but come soon they will to the current papal monarchy, as they long ago came to other European monarchies. Depending on the specific change, either voluntary consensus among many Catholics or involuntary coercion from outside governments (as has already occurred in the financial area), or both, are driving these changes relentlessly. As a Catholic, I hope the changes come voluntarily. As an international lawyer, I expect the major changes will come involuntarily in any event, if needed voluntary changes are not implemented soon.
Of course. the Church’s future options necessarily depend on, and are limited by, its present situation, as influenced by its unique history and traditions. Pope Francis cannot start afresh. He also faces considerable opposition from many sides. In some respects, Pope Francis’ situation today is like that of Pope Pius IX, who lost his large Papal States’ kingdom a century and a half ago to outside Italian governmental forces. Pius XI tried to recover some lost power by being “declared infallible” at the 1870 First Vatican Council. That move, however, may have created more problems for the Church than it solved.
Pope Francis appears similarly desperately to be trying, with recent papal saint making spectacles and his Synods of Bishops, to make changes to try to head off some of the likely changes he may anticipate being imposed on the Church by escalating outside government pressure. His fine tuning the rules recently on his power to remove bishops suggests he does not plan on endless debates with the likes of Cardinal Burke.
Moreover, Pope Francis must try to follow Jesus’ message closely if he wants to succeed. But traditions about Jesus, especially the all important “Good News” of the four Gospels, have been interpreted in different ways, prophetically, theologically and even politically, by earlier Catholic leaders and thinkers. These influential leaders and thinkers and their specific interpretations have generally dominated Church dogma and practice over much of its 2,000 year history, often in unpredictable ways at times with unanticipated consequences.
For much of this long period, popes benefited from considerable protection from powerful monarchs, and at times even tyrants. But this has generally no longer been the case since the end of Fascist hegemony in Germany and Italy by 1945. Since then, the Vatican has had to nimbly weave its web of political protection by trading Vatican support on an ad hoc opportunistic basis for national arrangements. These alliances ranged from close ties since the 1980’s with elected US Republican leaders to alliances with military dictators in Latin America and Africa.
Importantly, the Bible, including the Catholic New Testament, has a complex and complicated origin and multiple textual, linguistic, and cultural sources. It is now well known by scholars that the Bible is no straightforward guidebook on many modern problems. Early Church history also is poorly documented, quite diverse and easily manipulated by selective sourcing and quotations.
Indeed, millions of words have been written by modern biblical and church history scholars. Nevertheless, in recent years, there has frequently been greater rather than less uncertainty about some important aspects of Jesus’ reported words and deeds and about some of his “clear mandates”, than had sometimes been assumed as beyond question by earlier popes. “The Tradition is …”, is at times much more complicated than modern popes have sometimes suggested in their encyclicals and the Catechism.
The Vatican’s Current Strategy and Strategic Assumptions: Modern popes, including Francis, in their key dogmatic and moral pronouncements and proclaimed pastoral policies and practices, rely on many assumptions, occasionally unstated ones, sometimes selectively derived from preferred “in house” Catholic scholarship on scripture, history and theology. There are several assumptions in essential areas that are less certain than at times presented by self interested Vatican officials and their opportunistic apologists.
These assumptions are a major part of the foundation for the Vatican’s claims about the Church’s (A) origins and sources, including some key New Testament mandates, (B) structure, leadership and management, and (C) dogma and practice. On closer inspection, these assumptions are more doubtful than modern popes, including Pope Francis, have at times indicated and the propositions popes construct on these assumptions are often more uncertain than not.
By acknowledging these uncertainties now, some “unchangeable” dogmas and practices at variance with the lived experiences and informed consciences of hundreds of millions of Catholics can, and will be, changed voluntarily or involuntarily by the Vatican, to conform truthfully and honestly to Catholics’ current knowledge of, and daily experience, with reality. These truthful acknowledgements are often, as well, an essential prerequisite for the Vatican to survive the crisis and challenges it must face to survive.
The Vatican can no longer avoid addressing the current relentless questioning of some of its key assumptions, given the growth in the Catholic scholarship community beyond Vatican control, as well as the 24/7 media coverage and Internet revelations that at times undercut Vatican positions. And future papal pronouncements, without ample underlying independent scholarly support, are hardly going to influence many Catholics for long. The Vatican can no longer address modern day “Galileos” solely by placing them under house arrest.
Acknowledging honestly the uncertainty of the Vatican’s assumptions is fundamentally important, and also provides additional reasons to hope that positive changes in Church structure and doctrines are likely in the near term. If, as Jesus reportedly said, the truth makes us free, it is mandatory that the Church’s options for change henceforth be pursued based honestly on truthful assumptions, and not opportunistically on “selective truths”, as at times still occurs and has also occurred in the past.
Pope Francis had as a young Jesuit provincial in Argentina direct experience with the outside government power of a military dictatorship. He understands well that the Vatican he inherited from the ex-Pope was and remains in several areas, especially priest child abuse, on a collision course with outside governments armed with a coercive rule of international law. Longtime Vatican players, that had been accustomed until recently to living in a Vatican bubble in an Italy run by a seemingly billionaire swinger, do not yet seem to understand, as Francis appears to, that the days of “The Holy Father says … ” are over. Francis appears to know that either the Vatican reforms itself now or it risks being forced soon to reform, with the chaos and divisions that forced reforms would likely entail.
These assumptions, in varying degrees, have shaped much of the Catholic Church’s present. They will also influence significantly its future, no matter what Pope Francis decides to do. Understanding better these often unstated assumptions creates hopeful opportunities for adopting long overdue positive reforms by eliminating non-essential and questionable “certainties” that at times have been impediments to needed changes.
The overarching Vatican “framework” at present, based on current Vatican assumptions, appears to be mainly that (A) Jesus endorsed popes as supreme papal monarchs, (B) who are accountable only to God, (C) who uniquely interpret infallibly matters of “faith and morals”, including New Testament moral themes, and (D) who appoint as unaccountable bishops superior men, exclusively, (E) to implement and enforce unchangeable dogmas and practices mandated by popes. The Vatican currently, in effect, requires a billion plus Catholics to operate within this framework as well. This framework does not stand up well to close scholarly scrutiny.
Complicating Pope Francis’ difficult tasks are many opportunists, including several very wealthy and powerful Church donors, who appear to be seeking, for their own personal agendas, to exploit the considerable “spiritual power” possessed by the modern papacy and to benefit from the political prestige and financial assets that popes control. For more than the last three quarters of the Catholic Church’s 2,000 year history, popes have at times been important “players”, sometimes a major player, in the international political economy; hence, the age old objective of wealthy donors to influence both papal decision making and wealth management.
These opportunistic donors at times rely implicitly and selectively on several present weak papal assumptions, as do many in the Catholic hierarchy of cardinals and bishops. Of course, some of these Catholic religious leaders, with over 1,500 year years of accumulated political and economic traditions behind them, often also share some of their wealthy donors’ primary goals of maximizing their personal wealth, while also minimizing their individual accountability.
Neither Pope Francis, nor any of his potential successors, can make many of the needed positive changes, without at a minimum revising key elements of his weak assumptions. Pope Francis and his successors, of course, may be unwilling voluntarily to make these revisions. That may matter significantly for the 0.01% minority leadership who may then not survive. It may not matter much, however, to the 99.9% faithful majority, who may still get to see these reforms imposed on the leadership majority by outside governments.
The current likelihood is that Francis or his successor will, nevertheless, be compelled soon enough to make many of these changes, by pressure from outside governments accountable to their constituents, many of whom are Catholic. This is not the 1960’s, with the Second Vatican Council, when a collusive Vatican bureaucracy and their selected popes can stymie for a half century needed reforms agreed to by almost all of the world’s bishops at the Council.
European governments are already beginning to apply considerable pressure in the financial area with mandated reforms for the Vatican Bank and the Vatican’s own asset management operation. This pressure has included so far a Vatican Bank asset seizure, a Vatican City credit card facility freeze and criminal investigations, even an arrest of a key Vatican financial official by the Italian government. The Vatican has been, in effect, required to hire some of the world’s most influential and expensive financial and banking consultants, lawyers and auditors and that may still not be enough to keep all Vatican officials out of prosecutors’ reach.
While Francis bobs and weaves and seeks political allies like anti-gay American fundamentalists, Catholics need to cover their bets by continuing to press their leaders, including President Obama to act. Papal promises of change are no longer a safe bet without concrete papal actions fulfilling the promises. Insufficient papal action to date suggests a need for more caution and prudence, and less cheer leading and wishful thinking.
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