E.J. Dionne has written an earnest (not tongue-in-cheek) column in the Washington Post calling on the College of Cardinals to select a nun to be the next pope. He has a decent argument even if the idea seems laughable. I’d certainly celebrate if the college followed his advice. Yet, the overall impression on me is sadness. It’s sad that Dionne holds out hope. I respect his deep Catholic faith, as well as the tradition within Catholicism that he represents and extols. But the Church is likely to grow more conservative over time, not less. It is not certain that the next pope will be non-European, but most lists of potential popes have about 70% non-Europeans. Forty-two percent of Catholics are in Latin America, and almost all of the Church’s growth now comes from the Southern Hemisphere. It makes sense that the Church would look outside of Europe for leadership. Not only is Europe the most secular place on Earth, it has almost totally given up on Catholicism. Only in Poland and Ireland (among predominantly Catholic countries), do a majority of people report going to church at least once a month. As the Church moves away from its home in Europe, the secularizing influence of Europe will be diminished, not increased.
Without being cynical, if you think of the Church as a business, there is plenty of room to grow, but not in progressive-minded cultures. The Church will adopt policies best honed to attracting adherents in Africa, the Subcontinent, and other areas with large populations willing to hear a traditionally patriarchal gospel. It doesn’t matter what people in the Bay Area or Hawai’i want. Those are not growth areas for the Church, so I do not foresee a progressive-minded pope, now or any time soon. I’d be happy to be wrong.
Without being cynical, if you think of the Church as a business, there is plenty of room to grow, but not in progressive-minded cultures.
This is only true if you assume that the “business” doesn’t change its business plan.
There is massive opportunity for growth in Europe and North America for a Vatican II church.
you think? I am skeptical. Especially in Europe.
Perhaps “staunch the hemorrhaging” would be a more-accurate description than “growth.”
Hell, the Church hasn’t even reached the point of having popular elections. I’m supposed to pretend some old dude I don’t even get to vote for is infallible? Until I get a vote I don’t really give a damn who the Pope is.
I think the last major reform in the church was when they started doing Mass in the vernacular. That’s the rate of progress we’re talking about here.
I would prefer the most progressive Pope possible. But if that can’t happen, I hope they choose the African man, just so we can watch the racist heads explode.
I was raised in a nominally Catholic family. I’m cynical as hell about the church. Anyone (like many of my extended family) that is of reasonably progressive political persuasion that is not cynical about the church is fooling themselves. It’s a broken institution that somehow purports to speak for all of humanity from a place of humility in the face of God, and yet they have a huge property empire underlying very wealthy vendors (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/21/vatican-secret-property-empire-mussolini); they speak for the poor yet argue against contraception; they speak for families and deny the voice of women or even sexually active men. They are hypocrites of the highest order. They deserve nothing other than cynicism at all, ever. Oh, and pedophilia. Good one. “Pray for the Church” my ass.
John Allen has covered the Vatican for the liberal “National Catholic Reporter” for years. His book, “The Future Church: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church”, argued that the traditional American progressive v. conservative framework is of limited value in understanding the Catholic Church in the 21st century—largely because of the demographic trends Booman highlighted.
Many Latin American, African and Asian Catholics (laity as well as priests and bishops) are vocal critics of global capitalism (progressive), and see no contradiction in upholding many (conservative) traditional Church hierarchies and teachings.
Is there a culture, somewhere in the world, that extols and celebrates systematically raping pre-pubescent boys? There’s your growth potential.
Or, they could get with the modern global economy and grow the new-fashioned way, through mergers and acquisitions. I’ll bet they could pick up the Boy Scouts of America cheap.
Cynical? Yep. When one of humanity’s oldest institutions, purporting to give moral guidance to billions of people, turns out to be infested at every level with a decades-long and ongoing global criminal conspiracy to fuck kids and protect and even justify the fucking of kids, no level of cynicism can be enough.
For the least respectable form of “progressive” being a progressive is about finding outlets for bigotry that are acceptable to some other progressives.
Now do Jews, asshole.
You are the equivalent of the guy who jumps into a discussion about Islam by reminding everyone that Muslims are terrorists.
“Cynical?” No, it’s not cynical. You’re just a bigot.
Dionne sets a new standard of Village stupidity. Has he never heard of the ‘Magdaliene Laundries’? Does he really think that throughout all the church sex scandals the nuns did not know what their ‘bosses’ were doing? The scandal was SYSTEMATIC. The coverup was PERVASIVE.
The scandal happened BECAUSE NUNS TURNED A BLIND EYE TO IT.
BTW, the next Pope will be an Italian. A white Italian.
.
While I have not spoken to a nun in 45 years, my only experiences with them when I was young was that they were mean bitter people who liked to boss kids around, ‘for their own good’.
The whole lot of them will burn in hell if what they claim to believe is true.
Your image of nuns may be somewhat outdated.
Well, I am kind of outdated.
Nuns become soldiers in the battle for the White House
I know a number of nuns personally who are gentle, grounded, lovely people. There’s a reason why the Vatican is going after American nuns – within the church hierarchy here they tend to be one of the strongest voices of reason and empathy.
It’s a thoroughly rotten institution, and anyone within it who has any kind of moral compass has to find their own peace with that. Many have left because they could not reconcile their beliefs with how the institution actually functions. But among those that remain, there are still a lot of strong, good people trying to make their piece of the church better. And many of them are nuns.
While I have not spoken to a nun in 45 years,,,
I’m perfectly comfortable holding forth on what terrible people they are, ins a stereotypical manner.
No, no, but it’s ok, because they’re religious.
I care about the new Pope about as much as I care about the next Pepsi logo. Just politically, though, I don’t see why there would be all this room for growth on the subcontinent. India’s own traditions are strong and not the kind of damaged/destroyed remnants that were such easy prey for the Christian mop-up squads that followed the Sword and the Cross. Pakistan will continue to hold onto Islam as it’s always done — if anything threatens the Imam empire there, it will be secular democracy.
Africa is burdened with the success of the evangelical/despot mergers. I suppose they could turn to Catholicism in the same hopeless way disillusioned Democrats here might turn to the Libertarian Party.
Catholicism’s great draw, once its sword was blunted, is its theatrics. But most of the developing world does ritual better, too. I greatly doubt that the old Catholic trick of turning indigenous gods into saints and insinuating its theology into local rituals and celebrations will work this time around.
You’d be surprised. Catholicism is doing very well in India. It’s 18 million Catholics are a bigger population than Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, or Chile.
Everything is doing very well in India. 18 million out of 1200 million doesn’t look like “doing very well” to me. I’d bet most of that is in the former Portuguese hunting grounds on India’s west coast.
As it a nun for Pope, it would be worthwhile on account of its potential for disruption. But I assume you can’t be a pope before you’re a priest, at least. If they have to wait for that to happen the world will be pope-free for many decades/centuries or forever.
If it weren’t Dionne I’d believe he was just committing attempted subtle satire.
Any Catholic male, including a married one, is technically eligible to become pope.
I can’t believe EJ is really this naive … there is no way a conclave stacked with ultra-conservative JPII and Ratso appointees would EVER do that. You would be lucky if they didn’t pick a clone of Bill Donahue or Mel
Gibson’s father.
And as far as Latin America is concerned, one of the reasons evangelical protestantism has made such inroads there is because of the contraception question. Also,
The Rat spent most of the 80’s and 90’s weeding out progressive bishops and cardinals and covering up the child rape scandal. I’d say the chances of a more progressive Catholic Church are pretty much nil.
People think the GOP would rather shrivel and die than change its ideological commitments.
That might be true of the Party of Lincoln.
It is certainly true of the Catholic Church.
And would be, regardless of BooMan’s correct analysis of the geographical future of the church.
Ever heard of “remnant theology”?