Gawdly Intrigue at the Holy See
"The Roman curia, the Vatican's bureaucracy, runs on a model that is hierarchical and designed to suit the needs of 600 years ago. Today it is simply anachronistic and detached from reality. It badly needs reform, but that is never going to happen when you have a system where all the senior figures are clerics, there are no women in prominent roles, and it is all about the pecking order and an absurd obsession with secrecy." Robert Mickens, Rome correspondent, the TabletThe Vatican is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the preeminent, powerful patriarchal institutions of the world, second only in its view of the proper order of obeisance to godly commands, to that of its arch-opposite, Islam. Each insists it has a mandate from on high to shape and manage human affairs. And elemental to that management is the punishing control of half of humanity, leaving women utterly subjugated to the order in which they are second to men.
Islam demands surrender of self in a complete abnegation of individuality and, in effect, the human spirit. Roman Catholicism's demands are far less, and not quite as damaging to the human spirit, but a close second cousin. The Church demands of its faithful, honesty, integrity and fidelity to the faith of the Church. Unquestioning loyalty, which translates as a willingness and an obligation to respect the wisdom of its infallible shepherd.
Who finds his august temperament not the least bit amused by the impudence of nuns of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, representing 80% of nuns in the U.S., who have involved themselves in issues deeply troubling to the Church hierarchy. Ministry to gays and lesbians, resistance against the church patriarchal culture, acceptance of contraception and abortion, calls to set aside priestly celibacy, and the introduction of female ordination.
For this kind of audacious, insulting and unsupportable insubordination, the Holy Father has visited a severe rebuke, in his perception that nuns are incapable of governing themselves appropriately, and that they must therefore be brought under the kindly control of three bishops appointed with the authority to re-write their statutes, agendas and liturgical texts. Not to mention instructing the nuns in the supreme relevance of Pope Benedict's revelations of holy dictates.
For his faith-inspired troubles, God appears to have sent a series of unfortunate occurrences to bedevil and afflict his most faithful servant. Those whom he has felt he can most place his trust in appear now to have been a source of internal dissent and high anxiety for the Pope. All is not well in the world's most respected sovereign state; a handful of its 600 citizens have been churlishly agitating.
His very own faithful valet, Paolo Gabriele, is now held in secure custody awaiting disposition by the Vatican's justice. He took it upon himself under the express tutelage of critics of the Pope's closest advisers, to release to the press documents revealing of the Church's awkward handling of a number of very public issues, from fiscal problems to child sex abuse, perplexing and bewildering the saintly among them.
Gossip and court intrigue has run roughshod over good order and pious respect, with senior clerics conspiring among themselves to destroy the influence over the Pope of some of his most trusted senior aides. Influence within the Vatican is in a state of furious debate and flux, with cardinals attempting to sway Pope Benedict in the direction they wish him to take, to his vast discomfiture.
Cronies and cliques, their opposition and their cliques, all conspiring to undo the influence of one and burnish the opportunities of the other, are creating a battleground of unfortunate and miserable conditions. The papal court has been described as "a palace of gossipy eunuchs", "a village of washerwomen - they get down in the river, wash clothes, punch them, dance on them, squeezing out all the old dirt".
Does this sound like the inner and serene workings of a highly organized and responsible institution representing the worship of Almighty God, and the respect given Christianity's most sacred persona? Not so, and all because of the influence of the malign media: "Suggestions have been multiplied, amplified by some media, which are totally gratuitous and which have gone well beyond fact. They are offering an image of the Holy See which does not correspond to reality."
Which image might that be?
Labels: Heritage, Human Relations, Political Realities, Religion
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, June 02, 2012
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