CSotD: Meet the new Pope, same as the old Pope
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Pat Oliphant is one of the angriest recovering Catholics around, but, judging from what else is being said in cartoons and elsewhere, this is one of those cases where the insiders — even the disaffected ones — get it right and everyone else flails.
Oliphant presents us today with a brilliant metaphor.
To start with, in the fairy tale, the glass slipper was left behind by the mysterious girl at the ball, so the challenge was finding the specific foot that fit that particular shoe.
And, while Benedict was not pope long enough to have completely stacked the College of Cardinals in his image, there is little likelihood of dramatic change, particularly since any of JPII's cardinals who are now over 80 will be proscribed from voting in the conclave.
But, while Oliphant's cartoon certainly hints at this (and the name "Cardinal Luigi Cinderoli" alone is worth the price of admission), it's not beyond the scope of the concept to suggest that the cardinals will cobble a new shoe, or — to keep within the theology inherent in the system ("Come and see the theology inherent in the system!") — be presented with a new shoe whose size will have been established by God, the cardinals to then be inspired by Him to perceive the one whose feet perfectly fit it.
Which, I would note, suggests a level of predeterminism that would delight John Calvin.
However, on a more temporal level, whichever way you interpret the cartoon, the people who are hoping that the new pope will suddenly end clerical celibacy, order the wealthy to give all they have to the poor and begin anointing women as priests are operating on a level of hope and fantasy more aligned with the ruby slippers of Dorothy than the shoes of the fisherman.
As you may recall, in the original version of the fairy tale, the Sisty Uglers cut off their toes in an attempt to make their feet fit. But, despite my previously declared affection for the tawdry, violent titillation of the Borgias series, I don't really anticipate that level of corruption this time around.
And what I particularly don't anticipate is that (A) a majority of the conclave is hoping for a progressive new direction in the Church or that (B) some stealth liberal cardinal has been quietly biding his time and collecting votes in order to gain the throne of Peter and overturn the system.
The chatter about how the new pope is going to have to address the pedophilia scandal, resolve the issue of women's status in the Church and otherwise bring the Vatican into the 21st century is a lot of outside speculation based on a fundamentally flawed view of the papacy and of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Roman Catholic Church is not a chain of department stores and it does not have to change its approach to marketing just because some outside observers can't figure out its appeal.
We've already had this conversation. It was called the Protestant Reformation, and it established for all time the sacred right of the individual to interpret scripture and consequently to eternally burn in Hell.
Theology, in Catholic cosmology, is not a matter of opinion and it's certainly not a matter for those unschooled in the subject to interpret. Full Stop.
The Vatican's resistance to Galileo and Copernicus was less about what revolved around which than about undermining faith in the Biblical description and thus in the Church's pastoral (not necessarily its temporal) authority.
The sages of the Vatican were neither scientifically illiterate or innumerate: They opposed Galileo's reordering of the cosmos for the same reason they opposed translating the Bible and making copies of it widely available. It's hard enough to argue over heresy with people who know what the hell they're talking about, never mind turning it into a town meeting.
Today, the Church asks the faithful to live in two universes, that of the current century and reality, and, simultaneously, on a more metaphysical level of harps and angels.
Tertullian said (of the Resurrection) "certum est, quia impossibile," which is often translated as "I believe, because it is impossible" and then applied to other mysteries of the Church.
The literal translation is "It is certain, because it is impossible," which can also be rendered as "Nobody could make this shit up," which is even more literally accurate as a summation of Anselm's proof of the existence of God.
The bottom line is a duality in which Stephan Dedalus, the patron saint of disaffected Catholics, cannot bring himself to pray at his dying mother's bedside because he does not believe, and yet is afraid to blaspheme by pretending to pray in order to comfort her.
It's not as simple as the universal hypocrisy in all religions of listening to teachings about charity but then living at a level well beyond necessity and far above that of the poor we are told to care for.
It goes beyond that, to a daily duality of issues like using birth control despite a relentless drumming on the sanctity of life and the sin of artificial contraception.
Or being divorced and in a new romance but continuing to receive communion each Sunday despite being an adulterer in the eyes of the Church.
Or, on that topic, knowing that you could simply kill your wife and make amends in the confessional, but that, if you divorce her, you will have to go through a much more tedious, invasive and bureaucratic annullment process to make things right.
As a result, the average modern Western Roman Catholic lives as if he were told each Sabbath of the fundamental importance of keeping kosher, but then went home and had a ham and cheese sandwich.
And was okay with it.
There is a core of faithful, some of whom see Jesus burned onto tortillas or magically projected on walls, some of whom believe in, whether or not they have seen, apparitions of the Virgin in modern times, most of whom believe in apparitions in prior times.
There is also the political church, which does and has always kept a hand in secular legislation, prompting the Irish Unionist slogan "Home Rule is Rome Rule" and the bigoted but not necessarily inaccurate cartoons of Thomas Nast.
And it is all surrounded by a much, much larger, only marginally observant congregation who simply keep on keepin' on, and so the Church lives.
All of which is to say that, the empty prattling of pundits notwithstanding, the new pope doesn't have to fix anything.
Meanwhile, a reminder: Her name isn't "Kate Middleton" anymore. She's "Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge." You have until the middle of this month to stop calling her "Kate Middleton."
Once you get that straight, we'll present you with a pope and he'll have a new name, too, and some lovely clothes you can comment on.
With more or less the same impact on the universe and how it operates.
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