Pope Francis … the smiling pope

By Bob Gaydos

Reflecting on the anger, bitterness and violence that punctuated much of the year just past, I resolved to start the new year with acknowledgment of some positive development. Some sign of hope, as it were. I found it in, of all places, the Catholic Church. Or rather, the Vatican. Actually, to be specific, in the Pope.

Pope Francis, the people’s pope, has been a revelation and a one-man revolution within an organization that has been entrenched in dogma and shielded by ceremony for centuries. Since his surprise election to the papacy nearly two years ago, the Argentinian prelate has seemed to revel in speaking and acting like a, well, like a man of God. A least what my definition of such a person would be: Humble, unassuming, honest, approachable, compassionate, non-judgmental, empathetic and realistic.

Francis, the 266th pope, brought a positive note to the end of a brutally negative 2014 by: (1) Convincing President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro to reestablish normal diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, ending more than 50 years of pretending they weren’t neighbors; (2) announcing that the Catholic Church would be committed to fighting global warming. Diplomacy and science have not exactly been prominent issues for popes for some time.

These actions came at the end of a year in which Francis consistently and passionately criticized the culture of greed that has claimed much of the planet, resulting in the very rich getting even richer and much of the rest of the population struggling to simply exist. “The excluded are still waiting’” he has said of the false promise of “trickle-down” economics.

To top it off, in case no one was paying attention, Francis, who has shunned many of the papal trappings, used his Christmas address to the cardinals at the Vatican to scold them for their personal ambition, pettiness and attitude of superiority to the people they, in fact, are sworn to serve. In other words, time to change your focus, fellas.

Along the way, indicating that the Catholic Church is not, as some have suggested, totally anti-science, he has declared that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are, indeed, real, and can co-exist with the Church’s teaching of Creation. “God is not a magician with a magic wand,” he has said.

He has also encouraged cardinals to be less-obsessed with birth control and homosexuality (“Who am I to judge?”) and more committed to helping the world’s poor. And he has moved decisively to remove more of the stain of sexual abuse by priests that has been the most dominant issue associated with the Church for several decades.

All of this has angered conservative Catholics and especially conservative politicians who have counted on implicit papal endorsement for their views (especially on social issues) for many years. Suddenly, the pope’s infallibility on how we should treat each other and the planet we share is open to, not just question, but outright challenge. Fox News is apoplectic.

So be it. As a leader with no armies, the Roman Catholic pope can sway millions simply with his words and actions. Yes, the church is wealthy. Yes, it has political influence. Yes, it has an investment in repairing its soiled image and attracting new followers to replace those who left it because of the sexual abuse scandals.

Still, whatever one’s religious views, I believe that sometimes a person comes along and takes everyone by surprise by doing the unexpected. In Francis’ case, by acting like a humble servant of his God, rather than like the exalted ruler of some chosen group of people. Given the symbolic power of the position, this is huge.

I am sure the former cardinal from Argentina — a supposedly safe,compromise choice — has many cardinals shaking their heads today and wondering, “Tell me again; why did we vote for him?”

And that may be the most positive thing of all about Pope Francis. He has begun a discussion within the Vatican, within the Catholic Church and, by his involvement in global issues, throughout the world, on what our role is in relation to each other. It may be a discussion that will reveal the hypocrisy and greed that permeate today’s society. Perhaps it will even answer the question of what it means to be thy brother’s keeper.

That’s pretty hopeful stuff to me.

Pope Benedict XVI .. stepping down

By Bob Gaydos

Kings and popes don’t resign.

Except when they do.

In the case of popes, that’s every 600 years or so, it turns out. Pope Benedict XVI proved to be the exception to the socially accepted truism about kings and popes when he announced his retirement Monday, stunning a billion-plus Catholics worldwide.

Benedict, who is 85, is one of but a handful of the 265 recognized popes to resign and the first pope since Gregory XII in 1615 to do so.

Gregory faced a serious challenge to his power, since three other popes had also been elected by different factions of the church. Benedict faces no such challenge. Indeed, if anything, in his eight years in the papal chair he has created a collegiality of doctrinaire conservatism among the cardinals he has appointed and who will select a successor from their midst.

The point being, if the accepted wisdom proves to be correct and a conservative European cardinal is elected pope, nothing will change in the Roman Catholic Church. That could be a serious problem for an institution that has adamantly resisted adapting to the modern world and which is losing parishioners and financial support at a troublesome rate and is seeing ever-declining numbers of men entering the priesthood.

Benedict cited his declining health as the reason for his resignation, saying he felt he could no longer properly handle the demands of the position. He wasn’t talking about saying Mass or issuing decrees. The Church has been rocked by a series of scandals and challenges from within and Benedict himself has been central in some of them. That might lead a skeptic to wonder if his leaving for health reasons is the equivalent of an American politician stepping down to “spend more time with my family.”

Pass the grain of salt, please.

Next month, all cardinals under the age of 80 will meet to select their new leader. Whoever it turns out to be will have to deal with these major issues Benedict leaves behind:

• The sex scandal. Most of the sexual abuse of young boys by priests apparently happened on his predecessor’s watch, but Benedict has been implicitly connected with the church-wide coverup of the abuses. To this day, revelations and lawsuits plague the Church and some leaders still try to avoid taking responsibility for their part in the scandal. No whitewash will cover the stain. Only full revelation and penance.
• No place for women. This is beyond comprehension. That a bunch of old men don’t want to relinquish any power at all to women, refuse to accept women priests, to allow altar girls, to, in fact, deny women of any meaningful say in the celebration of their religion or how it is interpreted is, in my view, sinful. American nuns have tried to force the Vatican’s hand in this regard, so far to no success other than not having been punished for their uppitiness. The new pope will have some very curious nuns — and women parishioners — to deal with.
• Contraception. The Church refuses to accept it even though 90 percent (or more) of Catholics practice it. Benedict himself infamously worsened the situation by going to Africa and urging residents of AIDS-plaqued countries to shun condoms. Doctrine over common sense and, some might say, humanity. Surely, none of the original fathers of the church could have foreseen such a situation in writing the Gospels. The fact that acceptance of contraception in general would significantly reduce the need for abortions, an outcome people of all faiths desire, has not persuaded the Vatican either.
• Homosexuality/gay marriage. If the church chose to ignore the pedophiles in its midst, it has not been silent on homosexuals — who represent no threat at all to it. They are unacceptable.
• Divorce, married priests. The one would make life for thousands of Catholics more livable, the other would swell the ranks of new priests immediately. Don‘t bet on either.

There are other issues, such as how to meet the needs of a church whose members are increasingly from the southern hemisphere when the majority of the cardinals are still from Europe and endorse Benedict‘s conservative philosophy, and when much of the non-Catholic world views the Church as hopelessly behind the times. It all points to the likelihood that, while the resignation of a pope might seem like a momentous decision historically, in the real scheme of things this one might be no big deal. That could be the saddest outcome of all.

bob@zestoforange.com

A protest in Boston on Mothers Day, 2002. Reuter's photo by Jim Bourg.

By Bob Gaydos

This is going to be personal. Not just online blog personal, but in your gut, or should I say, in my gut personal. If you’re looking for politics, you won’t find it here. Our political institutions are a sham, self-serving and deceitful. This is about that other major institution you’re not supposed to talk about at polite dinner parties: religion.

Well, one religion. Catholicism. The one I was born into and eventually left. My intent here is not to offend or anger anyone who practices the faith or to challenge its teachings. In a sense, it’s not really about Catholicism at all. As religions go, I think it’s as good as any other if it fulfills one’s spiritual needs.

This is really about the people — the men — who control the Roman Catholic Church and who are, I believe, supposed to be spiritual role models. Instead, like politicians, many Church leaders, I also believe, are largely self-serving and deceitful. Driven by ego. Unlike politicians, they have the benefit of confessing their sins to each other and being forgiven.

This uncomfortable feeling about some of the good fathers of the Roman Catholic Church is not new. It has, however, been dormant. It was awakened with suddenness and surprising force for me recently as I read a story in the Middletown (N.Y.) Times Herald-Record written by my colleague, Steve Israel. It concerned two predators who had sexually abused many young boys while serving as Roman Catholic priests in local parishes in the mid-Hudson.

Steve had written about these men years ago when, no thanks to the Church, their behavior became public knowledge. Likewise, as editorial page editor of The Record at the time, I had written opinions about the priests and the manner in which the Church mishandled their cases. Yet as I read Steve’s recent article (prompted by the impending sentencing of Penn State sex predator Jerry Sandusky), I found my eyes welling up with tears and feeling a profound sadness and anger bordering on rage. I felt personally offended.

The sadness was for the victims and their families who, as they told Steve, must carry the hurt and humiliation, the angry memories, with them every day of their lives.

The rage was not for Edward Pipala or Francis Stinner, the local priests who betrayed their positions of trust. They are what they are. Pray for them, or not, as you choose. Rather, it was for their superiors, those bishops. monsignors and cardinals who knew what the priests were, what they had done, what they would continue to do if not stopped, and still let them do it, for no reason other than to protect the name of the Roman Catholic Church and, not so coincidentally, their positions of influence within it.

Thanks to someone’s merciful god, Pipala, Stinner, and dozens of other sexual predators in the priesthood around the globe, were eventually exposed. Some, including Pipala, served prison time. But this only happened after many years of the church paying millions of dollars in hush money to victims for their promise to remain silent, of moving predatory priests from one parish to another, often to positions that involved mentoring teenaged boys, and of refusing to report the sexual assaults as crimes to local police. Many years, many more victims. And many denials by Church spokesmen.

Where, in any testament or gospel or papal edict — never mind universal, common decency — is such collusion and conspiracy to conceal thousands of sexual assaults against young boys not to be considered the gravest of mortal sins as well as a crime? How in any god’s name do church leaders continue to preach against such perceived “evils” as homosexuality or contraception — both of which are widely accepted by Catholics — while they are still cleaning up the very real mess of decades of priests having sex with young boys and the Church doing nothing about it? Is hypocrisy not in the Vatican’s dictionary? Shame? Sorrow? Repentance?

I was an altar boy in my youth, but our church was of the Byzantine rite. When that church merged with the Roman Catholic, priests who were married, like ours, were allowed to remain married. Some suggest that allowing priests to marry or allowing women to become priests would reduce the number of sexual predators in the priesthood. Certainly diminish the tendency to cover up their crimes. But when the nuns who do the in-person works of faith of the Church have dared to encourage discussion of these topics, as well as same-sex marriage or contraception, they have been threatened with punishment by the Vatican. Still, the heavy veil of silence rules. The mere discussion of important social issues is seen as a threat to the Church and its all-male leadership.

One thing politicians do find out is that credibility is an invaluable commodity. Lose it and you lose the voters. The Church is losing parishioners in droves and few young men are flocking to join the priesthood. The reasons for this are right in front of their eyes, but many of the leaders of the Church continue to ignore them and to act as if all will be well if they do so.

The sex scandal will remain a sordid, unfathomable chapter in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, certainly as long as the victims are alive and, one hopes, so long as people of good conscience are around to make sure history is not rewritten.

Sincere acts of contrition by those responsible for committing and perpetuating this crime against humanity would certainly be welcome. As for those men of the cloth who see no need for such displays of humility, fortunately, their religion is one that believes in Hell. Personally, an eternity there seems fair.

Sister Pat Farrell, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious

 By Bob Gaydos

I venture with trepidation into the middle of a looming showdown of potentially historic magnitude. The trepidation is because the confrontation is of a religious nature and Americans have proven themselves incapable of conducting civil debate in this area. But my concern is not so much about the religious outcome of the showdown as it is with its more basic, universal, nature, if you will.

As I see it, the nuns of America versus the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church is a classic example of a group of women, given an opportunity to do and be more than silent, obedient servants within their institution, taking advantage of that opportunity and then being chastised and warned by the men who run the institution to, in effect, pipe down and remember their place.

Next week, American nuns will meet in St. Louis to discuss how to respond to a heavy-handed Vatican report that questioned the nuns’ loyalty to the church — a very male thing to do. The Vatican has appointed three bishops to oversee the restructuring of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization that represents 80 percent of Catholic women’s religious orders in the United States. The Vatican has made it clear that this will not be an all-voices-heard, collegial makeover, but rather “an invitation to obedience.”

The LCWR has drawn the ire of the entirely male hierarchy of the church by taking to heart an invitation issued with Vatican II to study the founding of their orders, review and discuss their missions and renew them. Vatican II, issued almost a half century ago and intended to bring the church into the modern world, also gave nuns unprecedented opportunities for higher education and advancement in the Catholic hierarchy in many areas, except for the priesthood, of course. The nuns seized the opportunity and over time became influential in many areas as heads of colleges and high schools, hospital administrators, lawyers and social workers, outspoken advocates for immigrants and the poor and activists for racial equality and protecting the environment.

This is, of course, the stuff of the modern world. So are same sex marriage, birth control and women’s rights. The nuns have discussed — but taken no official stand — on ordination for women as priests, abortion, artificial contraception and gay marriage. But to the bishops, the mere discussion of these issues — all  opposed by the Church —  is described as disloyalty to the teachings of the Church. That traditionally means case closed. Even though 95 percent of catholic women say they have used artificial contraception at some time and a majority of Catholics support same-sex marriage and any honest man or women you talk to readily agrees that if women were priests –and monsignors and bishops — there would have been no worldwide scandal of Catholic priests sexually molesting young boys.

The nuns have been given an ultimatum from the holy fathers who claim provenance over the teachings of the church. It is not clear what the Vatican will do if the nuns refuse to simply bow and return to silently serving their self-proclaimed masters. Is there such a thing as “replacement nuns”?

There are marches and vigils planned in support of the nuns. The Leadership Conference is considering a range of responses to the Vatican. Sister Pat Farrell, the president of the conference, told the New York Times that while the nuns see their questioning as faithfulness, it is seen by the Vatican as defiance. “We have a differing perspective on obedience,” she said. “Our understanding is that we need to continue to respond to the signs of the times, and the new questions and issues that arise in the complexities of modern life are not something we see as a threat.”

But clearly the bishops do. The Church has been run the way they have decreed for centuries. Now, some women (radical feminists?) want to change everything and, dare we say, maybe take some of the power? The bishops deny this. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the papal nuncio to the United States, told American bishops at a meeting in Atlanta, “We all know that the fundamental tactic of the enemy is to show a church divided.” I’m not sure to what “enemy” the archbishop was referring (another typical male tactic), but the voices of questioning here are coming from within the Church.

If I may venture ever so slightly into religion here, I believe a central teaching of most religions is to exhibit a degree of humility in one’s life. Let’s just say the nuns have done this for centuries. Let us also point out that in this fast-moving modern world there are far fewer nuns than there used to be and they are getting older.

History says the bishops will not blink. But history is written every day and often by intelligent, dedicated, passionate women. Who says they can’t be nuns?

 bob@zestoforange.com