COMMENTARY:

All Pope, All the Time: What's Happened to Our Media?

The coverage of this quasi-royal passing of the scepter to a new vicar of Christ on earth, and the property rights to a gargantuan Roman Church, has been a radio and T.V. extravaganza coming (as fate would have it) during a lull in entertainment offerings--to wit: the end of the NCAA basketball tournament; major league baseball just starting; hockey playoffs cancelled; football in hibernation except for the announcement that Monday night games will now be carried by ESPN. On top of the calm in the sports world, we have no elections in Iraq at the moment, a boring genocide proceeding apace in Sudan, and people in the US pretty much reconciled to Tom Delay, John Bolton, and the “nuclear option.”

So, Papal pomp suffices for now to fill the void in our universe of pop culture, brought to you by media monopolies that deliver groupthink with reliable regularity.

The Roman Catholic Church is, at best, controversial, even among practicing Catholics. In view of the bad publicity related to pedophile priests, massive litigation, and predictable stonewalling at the bishopric level, one would think even papal passing would be handled in a delicate and understated way, but, alas, the press has decided that this is really important and newsworthy and is not a ludicrous farce.

I don’t think they have any conception of how much of a non-story this is to non-Catholics. Even if I were a theist, the Catholic version of God would not be an attractive option. For a cult that eschews idol worship, when Catholics speak of God, I have a vision of an all-powerful dictator--vindictive, vengeful, autocratic, domineering, and patriarchal, who expects non-stop worship of Him and pretty much forbids anything on earth that could be considered fun. Fortunately, He does not appear to be on top of His game, and lets a lot of Catholics get away with a good deal of sinful practices on a daily basis.

So, we have Cardinals in red, smoke signals in white, and a new “compassionate conservative” in charge, insofar as a 78-year-old, 265th-in-line Pope can be in charge of much. The world has come to distrust compassion when practiced by conservatives. It results in too many wars, but Popes do not command troops that have WMD. They do, however, have a platform that stretches back over 1000 years, and although it is not working, the solution will be to double the effort. Liberal Catholics left the fold years ago, and the locus of the church is now decidedly southern hemisphere--demographically and psychically.

Due to this southern shift, the Catholic Church must remain true to a primitive mind-set replete with the trappings of superstition and idolatry. The worship of the “Word” will not be allowed to overwhelm the fixation on icons, symbols, and personified deities.

The press has been describing the transfer of power as an election. If this is an election, then the concept has been rendered meaningless. This was a selection by a small group of elite, spoiled, pampered clergy that have not been elected themselves but, rather, appointed by a Pope. Papal succession does not even have the scintilla of popular support that directors of publicly traded corporations have, and everyone knows that the directors are selected by the CEO and they, in turn, select the CEO. The members of the Catholic Church and the shareholders of corporations have no influence except as bystanders hoping for the best. The whole thing is justified by the self-serving mythology that the vote of the Cardinals is guided by the Holy Spirit. Well, the parishioners left out of this little morality play are not likely to get the best from this new German Pope, if that were taken to mean an effective voice, more recognition of women, enlightened policies on birth control or allowing priests to express their sexuality in a normal way.

The press has also described this new Pope--who's chosen the name Benedict XVI--as a “conservative intellectual.” Ignoring the is as oxymoron, it appears that his claim to fame can be summed up as his ability to say “no” to all modern ideas. While not suggesting that all modern ideas are worthy, one certainly has to question many of the old verities hanging on since the Middle Ages. They don’t hold--the world is round, the universe is mostly knowable, and mystery still prevails when one contemplates the transcendent. The sacred is visible when the earth is studied intensely in communion with it. It is a cop-out to default to a heaven in some non-material other universe or space-time warp, whose main function is to certify the pompous, red-robed pedophile protectors who have never known the liberating potential of a real job.

Unfortunately, there are many millions out there, really billions, who yearn for a charismatic, super-human leader who can claim a connection to a higher power. It is this conceit that allows charlatans, demagogues and snake-oil salesmen to rule vast territory on this ever more crowded globe.

If Popes held real moral authority--if they could be a real countervailing power to “evil” empires, they might be tolerable. Alas, in my lifetime, they have ranged from the truly malevolent who would accommodate a Hitler in their virulent anti-communism, to the harmless and feckless who bemoan immorality in high places as well as low, but cannot rally the faithful from their Popemobile.