Pope Frank the Pin Up Boy

As we go into the Christmas period, we see how humanity craves a superman.  For the last two thousand years, many in the world have been transfixed by the about to be birthday boy, Jesus.  The adoration often eschews objectivity.  I am yet to see an ugly portrait of Jesus.  Humanity is so transfixed by JC that all representations are as unrealistically beautiful as a fashion model after Photoshop.  No weight problem or retreating hair line in JC’s portraits.

Now that need to bestow adulation on an anointed one has been transferred to His most important earthly representative – Pope Francis I.  Frankie One is the “Time Person of the Year” and consequently the object of op-ed pieces by opinion writers without the wit or imagination to think up their own end of annum hero.  This blog is no exception although to be fair, assessing religious figures is core business for this blog.

It seems that it is part of the human cognitive response is that we must venerate the great and invest in those idols a magical ability to solve all of our problems both global and individual.  Where that person exhibits frailties, like a recent member of the Over Venerated Club, President Obama, disappointment quickly kicks in (notwithstanding my continuing reverence.  My views are not shared by many of his fellow Americans).  Vaulting expectations can be unrealistic and I expect that will soon happen to Frankie.  But for the moment, I am joining the conga line of fans. Yep, I am the biggest sell out in the atheistic firmament.

 Catholicism is an interesting contradiction – at the same time growing gang busters in Asia and Africa as it depletes in its traditional heartlands. The growth areas in Africa where it is locked in a bloody struggle with Islam belies the poisoned well of Europe, USA and Oz.  It is sick here.  The sexual abuse scandal has demoralised the congregations and demonised the vocation of priesthood.  The venality of the Vatican is appalling. This is all well known.  The systemic issues are woeful – archaic, complicated, irrelevant, self serving and autocratic structures that resist reform.

My view is that this reform aversion means you need 5 Francis like reforming Popes filling the committees and corridors of power with armies of change junkies.  If Francis is followed by a conservative, then anything he tries will be fruitless.  His reform agenda is still being rolled out but it is useless without at least a 20 year program of follow up.  The lovely Pope John XXIII was the Times Man (sic) of the Year fifty years ago.  His breath of fresh air was transitory. He was followed by Paul VI whose myopia killed off the chance of Catholicism to be anything but the laughing stock that it is in many parts of the West. The three conservatives following John ignored the abuse crisis until it was too late and did nothing to challenge the Vatican with its expense, high handedness, links to crime and odour of corruption.

The last papal Times Laureate - a wonderful man with a short papacy whose successors were distrastrous.

Francis interestingly the first Jesuit after 500 years of that Order’s existence, made a number of symbolic gestures repudiating the Vatican venality.  Unlike his predecessor who appeared obsessed with the various frocks of office, he has embraced simplicity of dress, demeanour and apartments.  This has a symbolic power in a world where inequality (difficult to measure) seems to have grown in recent decades.  But more importantly it is a signal to the Vatican – the gravy train has to stop.  He has called in the auditors on the Vatican Bank.  That is a tick.

He has spoken up for the environment (big tick) whilst at the same time the leadership of the Australian Church has attacked carbon pricing.

The ticks also include his statements (but not much action) on child abuse, the role of women and the need to love gays and lesbians.  Whilst he has changed the rhetoric of the gay and lesbian issue, he has said that this is not a harbinger for rule change in his time.  This is clever.  He must understand that the ranks of the Cardinals and Bishops are populated by nasty reactionaries such as Cardinal Pell in Oz.  It will take several popes, a couple of decades deploying similar rhetoric before the institutional change can happen.  My own modest experience with organisational leadership is that organisations, populated as they are with change resistant officers, will undermine reforming leaders.  One needs many reformers over many years to see change eventuate.  Asian and African leaders, reputed to be more conservative, are gaining increasing influence in the Church because they are the growth areas.  I am pessimistic that the Church will be capable of major change in the absence of a major crisis.

Francis has described priestly celibacy as a matter of tradition rather than faith.  This is an opening to change.  Francis will not make that change.  This is bad for the church for the priestly vocation will look to many people outside the faith as a magnet for weirdoes. 

And despite some encouraging statements, he still has orthodox positions on contraception, abortion, ordination of women, campaigning nuns in the USA and liberation theology.  He talks a big show but will only embrace incremental change.  He must appreciate that too much change threatens the whole idea of “mystery”.  How can you embrace a Church which relies on faith and mystery to underpin the rules and practices when those rules and practices are subject to radical change imposed from the top? So the change will need to be a sophisticated project of give and take, alteration and conservatism.  He will need help.

Fifty years ago, Time Magazine promoted a lovely reforming Pope as a global hero.  Because of the Popes that followed, the Catholic Church is mired in abuse, crime and sin.  Will it be the same with another Times laureate, Pope Francis?

What is your view?

Is Francis a one off?

What will it take change the Church?

Are individuals capable of resisting the ineluctable slide into a secularised world?

Over to you...and Merry Christmas