The Catholic Church in Trouble

I spent my youth as a member of the Catholic Church. I am no longer a believer but I still have a fondness for the residue of Catholicism that is left after all the belief has died out.  That is one reason that I rarely describe myself as an atheist.  Another is that I don’t agree with much of what the militant atheists do or say.   Having been Catholic is part of my identity and something that I cannot or would not wish away.  

So, I am saddened by the troubles of the Catholic church. The current pope has resigned. I think I understand why.   I have heard all sorts of rumors, but that basic reason is that he is simply old and ill. A century ago a man with his health troubles would already be dead.   When he was chosen he was already an old man.  Like John XXIII he was meant to be an interim pope, someone who is chosen when the various factions cannot make up their mind.  He was a man who would be around for a few years and die.   By that time the people with real power would have one or more candidates ready.  He is older than any of the other recent pope: Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul and John Paul II. He is older than any Pope in the 20th century. With modern medicine we can keep almost anyone alive for quite a long time, so elderly gentlemen like Ratzinger can survive past their sell by date.  There have been a lot of rumors about why the pope is stepping down and the scandals may have pushed Ratzinger over the edge but even without scandals he was  not up to it any more.

The sex scandals are killing the church.  They would have killed the church if the clergy was what the real church is.   This isn’t a new problem but for many years the official church ingored it because it was felt to be an American problem or an Irish problem. It is a problem that the hierarchy has made worse by not acknowledging it publicly and putting a stop to it. (No, I don’t think evil can be absolutely stopped but hiding it guarantees it won’t stop.)   The few actions the Vatican have made is this area have been nothing short of scandalous.   A few years ago Pope John Paul II gave Cardinal Bernard Law, a man who should have spent his last years in shame, a job within the Vatican. It sounded as if he was being wisked away into safe hiding.  I don’t know what Ratzinger has done about sexual issues but he has been almost scandalously obtuse towards anti-semitic clergy.   I can understand why he brought back the Tridentine mass, one could easily cleanse it of its anti-semitic parts.  I understand why he wanted to reconcile with people from the St Pius IX society but the way he did it was scandalous.  Given Ratzinger’s education and scholarship, I assume he was simply tone deaf to how this appeared to the outside world.

The recent pope wasn’t a bad man but he wasn’t hired to do anything he was hired to mark time.  Now that he is history, the church needs a reformer not an elderly caretaker. Given the nature of the kind of person who becomes a cardinal I don’t have much hope that the conclave will elect that kind of man.