The Pope’s Mission

Mar 17, 2013 Editorial

The Roman Catholic Church with its 1.2 billion adherents is the largest Christian denomination and on its own can stand as the second largest religion in the world after Islam.
Even in an increasingly secularised world, the Vatican as the centre of this mass of humanity obviously wields tremendous power. The election of the new Pope after the surprise abdication of Pope Benedict in the midst of a series of scandals that have rocked the institution is obviously of great import, not only in countries like Guyana that have a significant number of Catholics, but everywhere. The Roman Catholic Church, as the most senior Christian Church, has typically pioneered inter-religious dialogue.
The choice of Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio — who took the name Francis after St Francis of Assisi— as the 266th Pope, appears to be a calculated move by the Catholic church leadership to signal that they were making a concerted effort to address the upheavals in their organisation. Pope Francis would be only the second Pope to come from outside Europe.
However, as the son of first generation Italian immigrants to Argentina, the Church appears to have got the best of both worlds. He is a theological conservative who vigorously backs Vatican positions on abortion, gay marriage, the ordination of women and other major issues.
His most noticeable public trait is his humility and his austerity: he has never lived in the palatial church mansion in Buenos Aires preferring a simple bed in a downtown building. While there have been persistent questions of the role of the new Pope when he was head of the Jesuit order in Argentina during the dictatorship there, this appears to have merely buttressed his credentials to protect the Church.
His authorised biographer Marco Rubin declared: “Is Bergoglio a progressive — a liberation theologist even? No. He’s no third-world priest. Does he criticise the International Monetary Fund, and neoliberalism? Yes. Does he spend a great deal of time in the slums? Yes.”
We can therefore expect Pope Francis to be a transitional figure (at age 76) who will place the survival of the Church ahead of all other concerns.
While he will therefore take a hard-line position against changing the Church’s position against homosexuality, it is difficult to see exactly what he can do about the manifestation of the phenomenon in the bosom of the Church itself. The overwhelming problem in Latin America is the shortage of priests and the shrinkage of believers. Battered first by a widespread rebellion against compulsory celibacy — more than 100,000 priests were dispensed from their vows to marry in the 1970s and 1980s before John Paul II made it almost impossible as part of his more general crackdown on liberalism — and then by the reputational damage of the abuse scandals, the clergy had dwindled and aged at astonishing speed. Seminaries have closed all over the Western world. A very high proportion of the remaining clergy are thought by qualified observers to be gay, if often celibate. In the developing world, the regulations on celibacy are widely flouted.
Although 40 per cent of the world’s Catholic population lives in South America, it can no longer be automatically assumed that a Latin American is a Catholic. Pentecostal protestantism has made huge inroads, and, nowadays, secularism as well. Partly as a result of shrinking family sizes — themselves a symptom of the way in which women ignore the teaching on contraception — Catholic church attendance in the developed world has been falling steadily in the last decade.
The Church has been deeply shaken by the exposure of sex scandals among the clergy; in the developed world this seems to consist mainly of the abuse of young men and boys including young priests, and in the developing world of breaches of the vows of lifetime celibacy.
Further problems arise from continuing revelations of slow responses to the scandals, in what is tantamount to a concealment strategy. In addition, corruption scandals have surfaced, together with allegations of incompetence within the Curia, the Church’s governing body.

Latest News

The Pope’s Mission

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show|| April, 14th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Beckford brace Slingerz to fourth win on the trot, as Santos topple...

West Indies Women’s World Cup hopes in jeopardy...

GCC, Ogle, East Bank among winners as Demerara...

Unbeaten GCA storm to 2025 title

Tucber Park Cricket Club receives cricket gear...

Young guns flourish at Moo! National Junior’s...

Features/Columnists

Of Silk and Steel

Collaborative Government–Private Sector Action Imperative for a Resilient Trade Future

Rogue cops – only a few around

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]

The Pope’s Mission

Share this:

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show|| April, 14th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Features/Columnists

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]