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Outside Looking In · Apr 20, 08:33 PM
I’m not a Catholic, not even a Christian (though I was raised in that faith), so it seems a little odd to comment on the election of Benedict the XVI. Still, given the considerable influence a pope wields over cultural & political issues, even a non-Christian such as myself has an interest, however small, in the outcome of a papal election. Politically, I’m a liberal, so I was hoping the cardinals would break from expectation & choose a moderate or progressive pope. Obviously, I did not get my wish. For the last quarter of a century Cardinal Ratzinger headed the Vatican office that traces its history back to the Inquisition. He has spoken of homosexuality as “disordered,” when science clearly shows that it falls within the biological order. He has defended the church’s neurotic suppression of sexuality: no married priests, no women priests. And so on. That the young Josef Ratzinger was briefly a member of the Hitler Youth, while historically comprehensible, strikes me as . . . unfortunate. One would like to think that a future pope would have had a more accurate moral compass packed in his gear.
Even an outsider can draw certain conclusions, though. Actually, only an outsider can draw certain conclusions. The conclusion I draw is that the Catholic Church, the College of Cardinals & the Papacy are—despite the church’s claims of divine guidance—human institutions like many others. The politics of this particular choice are pretty clear: Ratzinger was John Paul’s right hand man & ideological fellow-traveler & all but a couple of the men in red who elected him were appointed by the previous pope. It was a political, which is to say, human decision completely comprehensible in human terms. Ancient institutional structures tend to preserve the status quo unless there is a damn good reason to change. Obviously, the last guy had done a good job, especially from a PR point of view, so it made sense to choose a successor who could lay claim to that particular legacy. The decision may have been made easier on the cardinals because they knew they would have a chance to make another choice in a few years. Benedict the XVI is seventy-eight years old.
What does the choice mean in the larger political sphere? It means that the Catholic Church has ceeded a certain amount of influence in the Americas, North & South, where charismatic forms of Protestantism are gaining popularity, in favor of an emphasis on Europe & Africa. In Europe, Benedict VIV may have some sway simply because he is European; in Africa, the new pope’s doctrinal conservatism will be welcomed by bishops & believers just now moving from traditional belief systems into the modern world. From the point of view of a Western, secular liberal like me, none of this looks very promising for the ideas & causes I believe in.
Change is difficult & institutions change slowly & in unpredictable directions. The Catholic Church may be at a fulcrum point right now, deciding whether to reject or embrace the modern world. The trend now is against modernism. The new pope speaks of “the dictatorship of relativism,” but versions of relativism & pluralism underlie the very structure of modernity. (To be sure, there are absurd versions of relativism just as there are absurd versions of authoritarianism.) Catholicism might go in any number of directions. One of the weirdest developments of the last twenty years has been the rapprochement of Catholicism & American Protestant Fundamentalism. When I was a little boy, we lived next to a Catholic family & I was friends with their daughter. We loved each other the way six-year-olds do, but at the same time we were each certain that the other was going to hell. Why? Because that’s what our parents believed. Vatican II seemed to have turned the divisions of the Reformation into creative dialogue, but that momentum has clearly come to a halt.
If I were writing a dystopian science fiction novel about the near future, I might easily imagine an alliance between American Fundamentalists & the conservative elements of the Catholic Church that comes to fruition in the election of Bob Jones VI as the Bishop of Rome. Well, that’s just a bad dream, but you see why I would dream it. How the Catholic “culture of life” with its opposition to preemptive war & the death penalty would come to terms with right-wing American fundamentalist cult of death with its belief in wars of aggression & revenge as well as the broadest possible use of capital punishment would tax anyone’s novelistic skill—beyond my abilities, certainly, though someone like T.C. Boyle might take on the subject. Or Kafka.
[Sidney Blumenthal on the cardinal’s Kulturkampf. Also, PZ Myers demonstrates that the pope is an ape.]
* * *
— Dorothea Salo 04/20/2005 10:39 PM #
— jd 04/21/2005 09:08 AM #
Like you, I am also discouraged by the selection of this pope. Politically, he seems to be a compromise, not Italian, but German—a pope for a greater Europe. Latin America will have to wait. Progressive values will have to wait. Compassion, love and hope will have to wait. He holds great power in his hands. I only hope he will speak as strongly against war, greed, racism and militant nationalism as he has spoken against abortion, gay rights and birth control. And I hope he understands that millions of people dying of AIDS in the African continent will be directly affected by the choices he makes.
— Michael Harold 04/21/2005 10:25 AM #