VATICAN CITY
The Week
Bank audits, sex abuse tribunals, and curial shake-ups, oh my!
By Peter Weber | October 3, 2013
In some respects, the Catholic Church is like any giant, multinational organization. It has some amount of corruption, bureaucratic dysfunction, even crime. But it’s also a religious institution, which we generally (and rightly) hold to higher ethical standards than, say, Coca-Cola or ExxonMobil. The Catholic Church is also different in that its chief executive, the pope, has more control over his organization than any CEO.
Since his election in March, and especially in the past few months, Pope Francis has really shaken up the tone and timbre of the church, particularly in its attitude toward controversial issues like gay marriage and abortion. And people have noticed. Even observers prone to be more critical of the Holy See, like The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, are cautiously welcoming a new morning at the Vatican. On Wednesday, President Obama shot some praise the pope’s way, too. “I have been hugely impressed with the pope’s pronouncements,” Obama told CNBC, when asked.
Obama added that Pope Francis’ open-armed “spirit, that sense of love and unity, seems to manifest itself in not just what he says, but also what he does.” But that touches on one of the criticisms (or accolades, depending whom you ask) of the new pope: He says all the right things, but outside of his personal habits and interactions, he isn’t really backing up those words with action.
That may be changing.
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