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Forget about the Devil. The Pope wears Prada. (No joke.)
Last week Pope Benedict XVI (or “Benny,” as some of us affectionately refer to him) gave his two weeks notice and will be turning in his mitre pretiosa, pastoral staff, and ruby slippers at the end of the month.
(By the way, bet you didn’t know the Pope wears a tiara.)
The last Pope to resign from office was Gregory XII in 1415, who did so to end the Great Western Schism that was one of the biggest (and world-changing) scandals in the Middle Ages. Today, after almost eight years in office, the Pope announced his own resignation, the first sitting Pope to do so in nearly 600 years, citing health issues:
… in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.
White Smoke, New Pope
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Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected by the papal enclave on 19 April 2005 as Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. The enclave has been held regularly in the Sistine Chapel since 1878, starting with the election of Pope Leo XIII, who was both the longest living Pope (he died in 1903 at age 93) and the first to die in the 20th century. Leo XIII also organized the First Vatican Council, which dealt with such worthwhile topics as settling the question of the infallibility of the Pope, and combating the problems caused by rationalism, liberalism and materialism that were creeping into official Church doctrine.
I hope the irony of the papal enclave being held in a space painted by the most likely bisexual Michelangelo is not lost on anyone.
Ratzinger inherited a Church rocked by scandal over sexual abuse and embattled over increasingly conservative positions on gay and reproductive rights, and the role of women in a male-dominated priesthood. By the time of his election, he was a strong defender of and supporter of returning to traditional orthodoxy. As Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the office originally founded to carry out and oversee the various Inquisitions, including the Spanish), his job was to “to maintain and defend the integrity of the faith and to examine and proscribe errors and false doctrines.” This included authoring an official document, De delictis gravioribus (Latin for “on more serious crimes”), clarifying the confidentiality of internal church investigations — that is, how to protect rapist priests from prosecution by local, secular authorities.
Continuing to Turn Back the Clock
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While Benedict famously gave a little in 2010 on the use of condoms to prevent AIDS, saying that it “this can be a first step in the direction of a moralisation, a first assumption of responsibility,” he followed it up by adding that condoms are “not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection.” He has also said nothing more of his support for the 1633 trial and conviction of Galileo for heresy (which can only mean he still approves). And in his latest book, he stated that evolution as a science was unprovable and incomplete apart from theism.
He even attacked rock music, calling it the “expression of basic passions.” (At least he didn’t label it Satanic.)
Whatever happens in the next few months, what we can be sure of is that the next Pope will almost certainly be as conservative as his predecessor. Just as a U.S. President nominates judges to the Supreme Court, a Pope sets down rules for the selection of his successor at some point during his reign. So we can be sure that potential nominees will obediently tow the ecclesiastical line on birth control, human rights, women’s ordination, orthodoxy, homosexuality and marriage equality (to name a few).
Some names that have been mentioned as potential papal replacements are Cardinal Angelo Scola, archbishop of Milan; Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna; Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Canadian head of the Vatican’s office for bishops; and even Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York.
Change Alone Is Unchanging
This current (U.S.) season of Downton Abbey has centered on the motif of change, and the consequences of either embracing or resisting it. *SPOILERS* In a recent episode, Robert (Lord Grantham, who now half-owns both the house and the village) is at the height of a multi-episode hissy fit about changes his son-in-law wants to implement in order to make Downton self-sufficient. As he rails against everyone for uniting against him, his wife (whose fortune he tanked at the beginning of this season) reminds him that he can’t keep shutting his eyes to the reality that the world is different.
The Church insists on continuing with business as usual, ignoring the reality that more of the world is becoming better educated, and that (related or not) it’s hemorrhaging followers in increasing numbers every year. The old pat answers that used to satisfy the deep and difficult questions don’t work as well anymore.
And with its leaders draped in Armani and Prada, parading around in costumes that put drag queens to shame, and living in lavish palaces that went out of fashion two hundred years ago, all while claiming vows of poverty, chastity, and humility, they broadcast the growing excess and obsolescence of religion and the church.
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