Death (and Resurrection?) of the Catholic Church

The Vatican's Holy Week of spin notwithstanding, public regard for the Catholic clergy, from the pope on down, has never been lower in the lifespan of anyone alive today. Yet the child molestation debacle could yet be an opportunity to remake the Church into something more in consonance with the gospel.

Once there remains no Catholic who attributes absurd powers to men who put on their pants one leg at a time like everyone else, it might be possible to suggest that the clergy is the least significant part of Catholicism or Christianity -- just as the "good story" of one Galilean woodworker says.

Keep in mind that in the gospel, Jesus' main response to religion is frustration and outrage with the legalism and hypocrisy of the religious professionals of his time and his religion. There is no command from Jesus to go to church. Pray in secret, do good without claiming credit, Jesus advises.

The one clear set of gospel commands that have unmistakable moral consequences are those concerning feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, visiting the sick and those in prison and so forth.

While the gospel story includes delegation of moral authority to the apostles, there is no incontrovertible establishment of a human organization resembling any of today's churches. Indeed, even in Catholic Christian teaching, the society of forgiven sinners who believe in Jesus Christ is an invisible entity of those imbued with the life-changing gift of faith.

In fact, there is already a vast army of people who do not bother paying attention to the latest papal utterance or Vatican decree. People who don't think they're smart enough to understand theology or interpret writings penned thousands of years ago. People who go about their prayers, their assistance to the needy and their struggles with faith quietly and without seeking the attention of others.

Aren't they the real Church, according to the gospels? According to the gospel, the heavens rejoice more over the repentance of one miserable wrongdoer than over the everyday lives of  church-going popes, priests or deacons.

Now granted, those who follow this blog know perfectly well that I, personally, don't even believe here was a historical Galilean woodworker named Yeshua bar Yosif who walked on water and was crucified. However, if there are people who believe not merely the historical facts, but the theological claims it would behoove them collectively to act and to be, as a group and as individuals, like a people who really believe.

If the pope really believed, wouldn't he be mortified at the thought that, because of his own personal error or omission or whatever, hundreds of boys were raped, some in the confessional? Wouldn't he and his minions be ashamed? Perhaps even fearful of the judgment to come?

Or do they really think that anyone wearing the priestly flea collar gets a Get Out of Hell Free card, valid no matter what they do, say or think? Or do they think that their God is intimidated by the harrumphs of the Vatican's cardinals, just as they assume ordinary mortals will be?

If people in the pews really believed, wouldn't they cease supporting the rotting and scandalous structure built in their name and with their money to the greater glory of the clergy? Just ignore it?

Perhaps, then the Catholic Church as we know it could die and rise in three days, as believers claim happened to someone long ago.

Nixon Time for Pope Nazinger

The smoking gun from Munich has now been published in The New York Times and not even the Catholic League, which has bought a space ad to defend the pope in a different case, dares challenge the finding against "the holy father."

What did Joseph Razinger (aka formerly a Hitler Youth, archbishop of Munich and chief inquisitor at the Vatican and currently pope) know and when did he know it?

• Written evidence shows that Ratzinger led the Jan. 15, 1980, diocesan weekly council meeting that decided to transfer Rev. Peter Hullemann, a priest sent from Essen to Munich for therapy to overcome pedophilia, to pastoral duties, meaning regular parish work. Hullemann was later sent to prison for what he did after that transfer in duties.
• Munich archdiocesan personnel chief Rev. Friedrich Fahr, reputedly "very close" to the then-archbishop Ratzinger, had received oral and written warning concerning the "danger" posed by Hullemann between Dec. 20, 1979, and Jan 3., 1980.
• Ratzinger received written notification that the transfer of Hullemann had taken place on Jan. 20, 1980, showing that he was kept informed.

As an ecclesiastical executive, Ratzinger has been neither a milquetoast nor a hands-off leader. Indeed, in 1981, Ratzinger punished a priest for celebrating Mass at a peace demonstration; the pressure drove the man to leave the priesthood.

So here are the values Ratzinger enforced: child rape, yes; peace, no.

How long before a John Dean rats him out on his other misdeeds? Stay tuned. Tempted as I am to picket the Vatican and chant "Ratzinger resign," it would be far better for him to hang on and take the whole circus down with him.

"Why should I pay for you when you get sick?"

The heading of this post* is the summation of all objections to any public social insurance program, be it unemployment compensation, social security, day care supports, family leave and even education. Now that the congressional debate over health insurance reform has ended, perhaps we ought to ask, why indeed should I pay for you?

The first answer, of course, is that if a law says I must pay for you, surely it also means you must pay for me. That's what social insurance means, joining forces as a society to share the essential risks and challenges in human life, such as illness, unemployment, bearing and rearing children, acquiring necessary knowledge and old age.

They've been doing that for 60 years or more in the part of Europe that was never Communist.

Secondly, and seldom acknowledged, because someone has already paid for you. When you were 3 years old, say, even if you were born wealthy on paper, were you handling your investments, let alone buying and preparing all the food you ate, the clothing you wore, the housing you had? Weren't you a net recipient of everything until, at a minimum, your adolescence?

If you started your own business, did you build the transportation infrastructure that allows you to ship goods to customers? If you are now retired, do you think for a moment that you contributed every last penny that is being spent on you while you produce nothing at all?

There are no utterly self-sufficient individuals. Not even you. That's why you should pay for me when I get sick, in fairness, to make up for my paying for you when you get sick.

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* A phrase stolen from Kel, the blogger of the Osterley Times.