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“Ruminate – to think deeply about something” (Oxford Dictionary)
The recent election of Pope Francis
Hi, I’m Rob Greaves and I’m a Feature Writer, Administrator and ‘Editor-in Training’ at the Toorak Times, sometimes I publish under Rob and sometimes under ras-x.
This is the third posting in a new on-going, if not somewhat ad-hoc column called “Ruminations From My Veranda”.
So I sit here on my veranda, the weather is warm in the hills of Belgrave this evening and I have a fine glass of 2011 Banrock Station Chardonnay. Nicely chilled it is full flavoured with a taste of peach and citrus. Along with the warm breeze it has put me in quite a mellow mood.
I feel another rumination coming and despite the mellowness of the moment my mind slips into matters of religion. Hell! Aren't we told to avoid politics and religion unless we want a heated exchange. Well, the last 'rumination' was on politics (Who the hell is best to run this country?), so I may as well jump into religion!
Sufficient time should have passed to have dealt with the 'argy bargy' associated with the election of Pope Francis I. Now I’m not a Catholic, in fact I’m a healthy skeptic about the existence of a ‘God’, as well as the existence of aliens, ghosts or associated phantasms! In fact I wrote an article on why I reject religion for the Toorak Times some time, so rather than repeat myself, if you are interested you can read it through this link: Finding and Rejecting Religion!
However I’m not sure that any religious event in the world attracts as much attention as the election of a Catholic Pope. I think this is partially because there are quite a few Catholics to stir up interest. I believe the worlds population is around 7 billion, and there is a tad over 1 billion Catholics so a fair approximation is that around 15% of the worlds population have some affinity for Catholicism.
It is also because if there is one thing the catholic hierarchy knows how to do, it’s to put a damn good ceremony together, and this makes great television and attracts a huge media contingent.
So it’s hard to avoid the event. There seemed to be a lot of 'hoo-ha' about the Catholic Church needing a reformer to deal with some of the hideous mess that the Catholic Church has embroiled itself in. I’m sure I don’t need to list it all but it includes abuse of children, men and women, it includes issues of not ordaining women priests, failing to recognise female equality, the remoteness of the church from mainstream life, in fact just the relevance of the church in general is a matter for concern and finally, so should be the age of the Pope Francis.
So we have a new Pope and is he likely to deal with any of these issues? Well it could be seen as another old man being elected into a position of power and authority, after all he is 76 years of age. In any workplace there would be an expectation that a worker of 76 would be due for retirement. But we aren’t talking about any old worker; we are talking about the CEO of one of the world’s largest corporations. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that the Catholic Church is not an International conglomerate, with its HQ in the Vatican - because it is!
The Pope is its CEO. So where does that leave him in regard to CEO’s from the largest International companies? Well a quick search revealed that among the top 500 S&P companies, the trend from 2004 is for the CEOs to get younger with the majority being under 55 years of age.
A trend everywhere except the Catholic Church. Then add the fact that Pope Francis also had a major operation and had part of a lung removed in previous years, and I get a bit concerned over his longevity.
Is this in fact part of the ‘plan’ – to keep rotating the older more conservative cardinals as Popes to maintain the status quo? After all it is easy to see in ourselves that we tend to become more conservative as we age, and here we are dealing with the “High Church of Conservatism”.
Then it really pissed me off when I read what he said about the Church and the poor. "Ah, how I would like a poor church," he said, "that is poor and is for the poor."
Oh, really? Now I bet the Vatican Spin-doctors will work overtime on this one, because the last, I mean the very last thing the Catholic Church would do, is hand over its wealth to the poor. I was curious and found it hard to get a definitive answer on the Internet in regard to the net value of the Catholic Church. The closest I could find was an estimate in the 1990’s of it being $5 billion, and that did not include the value of Vatican City itself.
Whatever the figure really is, its one big piggy bank of money – and there is no way come heaven or hell is the Church going to give any of this up, to become a “church that is poor”. In fact this might be dangerous talk, I mean Pope’s have been mysteriously found dead in the past! Just saying . . .
Look, there are a lot of people saying that this IS the man, this is the one who is most likely to succeed in bringing reformation.
“Phooey"!, is my reply. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, for one moment let’s assume that he really wants to bring about true reformation. Does anyone for one moment think those ‘fat cat’ Cardinals, eSpecially those with the cushy jobs in the Vatican, are going to risk the end of their ‘gravy train’? No chance! They'll let him have his say applaud and congratulate him on being a fine example of a Pope, but nothing that matters will change.
Now change is actually better when it starts at the bottom and works up, but, the first step is for this Church is to admit it has real problems, and then confess that it has made monumental mistakes, list them, apologise, make reparation, and then set about bring solid and permanent change in its attitudes and values to the type of issues listed above.
Not going to happen! So as Donavon sang back in the 60’s, the best we can do is, to have a ‘poke at the Pope’, for until we can liberate people from their terrible dependence on the Church, and to bring true and lasting reformation of the Church itself, then we can expect this 'merry-go-round to continue. You want the truth? Look inside yourself!
I sigh, because it is obvious that writers for many, many, more years will be able to continue to write about the massive shortcomings of the Catholic Church, and they will have no shortage of material to write about in regard to its CEO; the Pope.
Now excuse me, this bottle is empty, and the drink fridge is at the other end of the veranda.