When Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope in 2005 many liberal Catholics were disappointed that the College of Cardinals had thrown away a golden opportunity to let some fresh air in the corridors of power within the Vatican. Like every organisation, the Catholic Church needs to review whether it is being effective in achieving its mission and take action to update its strategy if it results that its operations are not effective.
Many are still hoping that the strategies of Vatican II will some day be updated
When Pope Benedict XVI surprised everyone with his announcement that he would resign at the end of February for health reasons, some media correspondents remarked that by resigning the Pope had performed “an intrinsically modern act”. The culture of resignations may not be strong among our political class, but it is even rarer in the Church. The Irish Times Rome correspondent Paddy Agnew compared the Pope’s resignation to the resigning of a chief executive of a multinational company with a staff of 1.3 billion. So could the Pope’s decision “open the doors to a wider transformation?”
The corporate governance of the Roman Curia is unique. The respected liberal theologian Hans Kung describes the Vatican as a “medieval-baroque court” that needs to be transformed into a “modern, efficient central Church administration”. No modern business organisation could survive the toxic internal politics that seem to prevail in the Church.
The conservative forces have gripped the Church for the last four decades could not do much to avoid the turmoil caused by the issue of clerical sex abuse, priestly celibacy, the lobby for women priests, and the ‘Vatileaks’ saga that gave us an inkling of the internal power struggles, rivalries and jealousies that permeate in the Church’s headquarters. Surely the time has come to transform the Church into a modern enabler of progress in society, especially in poor countries, where the rights of individuals rarely feature on the political agenda of politicians.
The unique way in which the Catholic Church selects its leader and the absolute power that it gives him do not augur well for a much-needed phase of renewal. The ‘Romanisation’ of the Vatican’s administrative apparatus will prevent the new Pope from bringing about change irrespective of his age and nationality. The Roman Curia is still dominated by the Italian culture.
Paddy Agnew describes the effects of the dominance of Italian culture in the Vatican graphically when he writes: “Italy does very good Chianti, extraordinary patrimony, wonderful fashion and many other things, but it does not do modern, efficient administration”. Italy is simply not a modern, transparent and accountable democracy.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is going to leave a formidable list of unfinished business to his successor. Relations with Islam and the Jewish people, sexual mores, sex abuse crisis, the fall-off in first world vocations, the role of traditionalist groups within the Church, the persecution of Christians in Africa and the Middle East and Catholic divorcees denied the Eucharist are some of the issues that the next Pope will have to deal with if the Church is to continue to be relevant to the lives of millions of Catholics.
The Church of tomorrow needs to understand that it no longer makes much sense to be Eurocentric when the majority of Catholics are now to be found in South America, Africa and Asia. Today a mere 277 million Catholics are European – that is just 24 per cent of Catholics. While the Church is doing some sterling work in South America to improve the quality of life of millions of people deprived of their rights and dignity by authoritarian regimes, these people are not sufficiently well represented in the senior levels of the Church’s authority.
While lately the Church seems to have realised that it needs to have a more effective communications strategy, there are few indications that is succeeding in building bridges with society or even with its own followers. In one of his last meetings with the Roman priests, Benedict XVI criticised the media for the ‘misunderstandings and banalisations’ of Vatican II. If there was one excellent communications exercise that the Catholic Church delivered in the last several decades it was the launching of Vatican II and the inspirational strategies that were defined in this ecumenical council.
Many are still hoping that the strategies of Vatican II will som day be updated and implemented. They are ready for change but fear that the College of Cardinals will once again miss the opportunity to open the windows of the Vatican so that a breeze of fresh air will clear the cobwebs.
johncassarwhite@yahoo.com