The Catholic Church has written to RTÉ to complain about a sketch featured in the new Mario Rosenstock TV show.
Martin
Long from the Catholic Communications Office said the sketch on last
week’s show – which featured a man spitting into a bucket in the manner
of a boxer, before receiving communion – ridiculed “the reception of
Holy Communion, the Eucharist, which is the body of Christ. To make fun
of this sacred act is sacrilege and is offensive.”
In response,
Rosenstock accused the church of trying to “[tell] RTÉ what they can and
cannot show”.
That’s not entirely fair – it is possible to see
how devout Catholics might have found the sketch offensive and, of
course, the communications office is within its rights to complain on
their behalf.
At the same time, though, when it comes to making
the church look ridiculous, you could argue that the hierarchy itself is
doing a better job than any comedian.
Being a Catholic these days is a
bit like finding yourself trapped in a neverending episode of Father
Ted, without the funny bits.
Imagine, for a moment, that you are
the pope and you’re about to write the book which – as you head into
your 86th year – could even be your last. What issue would you feel
compelled to tackle?
Would you plump for declining Mass
attendance?
Would you tackle the issues of reproductive choice, or of
women priests?
Or maybe you would opt to explore gay marriage, or the
child sex abuse crisis currently rocking Australia?
No, of course you wouldn’t; not when there are urgent theological issues to be determined.
Pope
Benedict XVI latest book has prompted a rash of “Pope bans
Christmas”-type headlines. Although Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy
Narratives is a proper theological study and the third in the pope’s
series on the life of Christ, certain media have seized on a handful of
statements within the book: that there is no evidence to state that
there were any cattle, donkeys or other livestock present on the night
of Jesus’s birth; and that he may not have been born on December 25th,
0000, but several years earlier.
The Vatican has pointed out that
these are minor points in an otherwise serious work that attempts to put
the life of Christ into a historical context and to remind Catholics of
his message.
But worthwhile as this may be, I’d question whether
theological discussion is really the best use of the pope’s time.
Whatever
his aim in writing the book, the result is an impression of an
organisation that only occasionally pokes its head out of its ivory
tower to deliver increasingly irrelevant edicts to its ever-shrinking
audience.
The church is currently experiencing what some of its
members believe is the most disruptive and transformative series of
events it has undergone since the Reformation.
The handling of the
various child sex abuse scandals has rocked it to its foundations.
The
issue of reproductive choice has left many women feeling uncertain about
their place in an organisation that wants to deny them control over
what happens to their own bodies.
Gay people say they feel
disenfranchised by its teachings on sexuality.
According to the
Ipsos/MRBI 50th anniversary poll published in this newspaper last week,
90 per cent of Irish people still call themselves Catholics, but just
over one third go to Mass once a week.
One in five does not believe in
the resurrection of Jesus or that God created the universe.
Three
quarters would opt to trust their own conscience, rather than turn to
the church when making major decisions.
Instead of addressing the
factors within the church that have led to this drift, the hierarchy
seems to have turned inwards, opting to blame its members for a lack of
moral fortitude.
Its overriding preoccupation seems to be with
what it refers to as the “secularisation and spiritual desertification”
of its own flock.
And yet when it has the opportunity to reach out
to a group that may be feeling disenfranchised, it bypasses women, and
gay people, and those in families that fall outside the church-approved
norm – and invites a bunch of circus performers to the Vatican instead.
(I didn’t just make that up – that’s what it did last weekend.
Meanwhile, Irish survivors of institutional abuse are still waiting for
their invitation.)
The church could take solace from the
remarkable statistic that 90 per cent of Irish people still count
themselves as belonging to it, in name at least, and it could start
looking at ways to make them feel more invested in its future.
But
I suspect this is not going to happen any time soon, even despite the
promise of its latest venture, a foray into social media.
The news
that Pope Benedict XVI has launched himself into the Twitterverse
– his representatives are tweeting from @pontifex – is unlikely to persuade many that the organisation he leads
is ready to embrace the modern world.