Let’s live in the here and now (Opinion)

If the Roman Catholic church were a corporation, its shareholders would be calling their stockbrokers and calling in “sell” orders.

To carry the analogy further, Vatican Inc.’s ‘president and chief executive officer’ has resigned and there are no new products in the pipeline. 

It’s in the business of selling moral compasses and belief systems that have remained unchanged for two millennia. It is a solid product, but it has not quite moved with the time.

The shareholders are mostly loyal, but the company has a peculiar leadership style — it is run using a system of preferred flock — sorry — stock options. 

And to have a say, you have to be male, single and hold the benefits of ordination and membership into its priesthood and its upper levels. 

But you can only advance in management if you have a proven track record of sales, marketing, management and following the company line.

The new CEO will be elected by a board of 120 cardinals who have been appointed by the CEO or his predecessor — so the vision of the corporation is pretty focused on those moral compasses and belief systems.

And Vatican Inc has not had such a corporate governance issue to deal with in quite a while. Company records show that the last ‘CEO’ to step aside did so in 1415. 

But last week, Pope Benedict XVI decided to step down. There is not a retirement plan in place — so far, he will get free accommodation in a quiet corner of the company’s downtown Rome headquarters, but is not expected — nor wanted — to help pick his successor.

Normally, once you are the pope, you are expected to be carried out of the Vatican feet first.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should declare that I had been a card-carrying member of the church. 

Bless me, father, for I have sinned, it has been 40 years since my last confession. Education by nuns, Christian brothers and Oblate priests was enough for me over the early years. 

I do, however, admit to going along with a million or so other people to see Pope John Paul II when he visited Ireland in September, 1979.

Now, there was a pope with charisma. The elevation of the Polish clergyman to the Holy See of St Peter’s helped bring about the fall of Communism — a theology of equal opportunity except for politburo members. (Sort of like the Roman Catholic Church?)

In many ways, the fact that John Paul II was so successful and so long in the position made the shoes of the fisherman almost too hard to fill. He was a conservative hardliner who appointed most of the curia — those at the level at Cardinals — who would pick his successor.

Negative connotations

His most loyal right-hand man was then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Bavarian born with a Teutonic attitude on those who did not follow the company line. 

Now, when I say that Vatican Inc is in need of modernisation, consider that in 1981, Ratzinger, by then a professor of theology, was appointed as Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. 

It had been renamed from The Inquisition by church officials because that had all sorts of negative connotations to do with torture, burning at the stake, that sort of thing.

Ratzinger was the enforcer, bringing the full weight of the church to bear on those who were too liberal; who wanted change; who thought priests should marry; that women had a place in priesthood; that family planning policies needed to be more realistic when the majority of its faithful practised in the Third World or developing nations where access to health care or indeed women’s physical health were being put at risk by bearing many children in dangerous conditions.

As a young journalist, punishment for not knowing your place was being sent to cover the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Ireland. Aids had just become a real threat to those leading loose lifestyles. 

I remember asking a question on whether the Catholic Church would become more lax in its use of condoms, as they proved to stop the spread of the disease. With steely eyes and blessed determination came the response from a bishop: “The only vaccine against this virus is virtue.”

Wracked and shaken

It was Ratzinger who oversaw the thick files of members of the priesthood who were accused of sexually molesting those in their care. Let’s just say he looked after the interests of the Vatican better than those of the victims.

Ratzinger was also by John Paul II’s long and public suffering for months when the ailing pontiff was wracked and shaken from Parkinson’s disease. 

It was those days that likely placed the notion in Ratzinger’s mind that if he ever became leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, he would not be seen to be suffering such anguishing last days in office.

On the death of John Paul II, having dominated the church for so long, the logical choice for the politburo, locked away in the Sistine Chapel, was to go with the continuity, the man you know best.

What the Church needs now is an altar ego to bring its hierarchy into the 20th Century. 

The rest of us will live in the here and now.