Is it time for a Jacobin pope? Plus, musings on an American

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Do you actually think, Allen, that this bunch of corrupt oligarchs could produce the needed leadership for the church in an uncertain future after decades of corruption and decline? Really?

It is interesting that you choose the historical metaphor of the Jacobins to capture what we need in the next pope.

A Jacobin, in the context of the French Revolution, was a member of the Jacobin Club, a revolutionary far-LEFT political movement. The Jacobin Club was the most famous political club of the French Revolution. So called from the Dominican convent where they originally met, in the Rue St. Jacques (Latin: Jacobus), Paris. At that time, the term was popularly applied to all supporters of revolutionary opinions. In contemporary France it refers to the concept of a centralized Republic, with power concentrated in the national government, at the expense of local or regional governments.

Which nuance of the term Jacobin do you espouse, Allen? The original revolutionary leftists? Or the more modern centralized bureaucrats? If you're talking about Ratzinger trying to manipulate the next consistory, I think he would go for someone much like himself: A curial careerist who can continue to try to keep the lid on all the decay and corruption in the Vatican leadership - struggling against all hope that hierarchs can keep the feudal oligarchy going for another decade or so.

After all, the men you cite as Ratzinger confidants, like Cardinal William Levada, are no broad thinkers who take the long view. I worked up close with Levada for several years, and believe me, he doesn't have a visionary bone in his body.

I know, miracles can happen, and have saved the Roman church before. The curalists once upon a time underestimated the potential of an aging cardinal-patriarch from Venezia who was supposed to be a papal placeholder until more acceptable "papabilli" could emerge. I dare say, we will probably not see the like of Papa Giovanni again for centuries, maybe a millennium.

Apostles, geniuses of the human heart like Angelo Roncalli are as rare as life-supporting planets in the universe - they're out there, but so very, very far away and few between.

Remember, the motto of the Jacobins applies really well to the hierarchs in their efforts to maintain the world's oldest all-male feudal oligarchy: Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, ou Mort!

The hierarchs will hold on to power albeit with all their slowly waning strength.

PS: Sean O'Malley is a compromised and corrupted as any other cardinal.

Cardinal Sean certainly is a jewel (if not THE jewel) in the crown of the Church. After having tackled three 'clean-ups' in the clergy sex abuse crisis and from what I can see thru his blog, works hard to develop and maintain community in the Archdiocese. And wasn't he also appointed investigator in the Legionnair's fallout and also in the Irish crisis? If anything, he combines courage, devotion and administrative ability. Give me a Capuchin any day, but Card. Sean first.

John, Cardinals

Quellet, Dolan, and Sambi are true papibili. They, to paraphrase the old Roman quip, will go into the conclave as a pope and come out a cardinal. Benedict's successor will more than likely be a little known bureaucrat completely out of the headlines and none of the clowns and publicity hounds we've seen on our TV screens ore read about in the Catholic and secular press.

Americans still indulge in the fantasy of one of their own getting elected. They and only they entertain such absurd notions. Ditto the Latin American cardinals.

John, You said of Pope Ratzinger "he's hardly the extrovert John Paul was, so it seemed reasonable he might invest more energy in internal business".

You can say that again. I would remind you of the old saying, "silent waters run deep". Pontiff Ratzinger is the hands on ruler of the Church in ways John Paul II could never imagine. JP2 was a clown pope. All theater and dramaturgy but with real power slipping through his hands.

He and Benedict are the last of the glittering "Frederico Fellini Pontiffs". They're like the pharoahs of Egypt. Appearing almost god-like, but are actually a front for rot and decay occurring beneath the surface or behind the sanctuary curtains.

Like wind-up toys operated by someone or something else over which they have either no control, or have lost whatever control they once possessed. Roman glitter and show biz on stage in St. Peter's while everyone else with a brain of his/her own dismisses them as historical anomalies. Now totally irrelevant to the real Church. A Church rapidly moving out from under their control. Ratzinger only hastens the Church's decline. He doesn't stop the hemorrhaging.

A SIMPLE FIX, PERHAPS ? ...... John, how about raising some real "gamechangers", rather than just speculating on moving around the current "players"? If we just followed the wisdom of the early Christians, before Constantine put a spear to their heads, we might consider something like the following.

As each bishop retires, a successor would be selected by local Catholics, including the laity, and could be removed by them for specified cause. Popes would once again be elected by all the world's bishops. No bishops, including the pope, could serve for more then ten years or after his 70th birthday.

Over time the episcopacy would be reformed and likely become again responsive to the People of God. Bishops would have an incentive to listen to the faithful, including women.

Sean O'Malley is one of those bishops, like the archbishop of Dublin who prostrated themselves begging forgiveness for the church's sins, like William Morris of Toowoomba, Australia, who was fired by Benedict for daring to suggest a solution to the dire priest shortage would be the ordination of women and married people, who seems normal and decent in spite of all the subterranean mindset of the Vatican. He is certainly an upgrade from Bernard Law! Interestingly, or strangely, the same papacy that rewarded Bernard Law for masterminding the outrageous, sinful, criminal sex abuse and cover-up in Boston, and protected and promoted him by snatching him from the hands of U.S. justice before they got hold of him, and set him up in royal splendor as archpriest at St. Mary Major in Rome, is the same papacy that appointed Sean O'Malley. All of this remains as inscrutable as it was ugly and sinful. It does not relax suspicion, it only increases it. It is the politics of religion and churches. Should we consider Benedict spiritual or clever for placing Timothy Dolan in New York, then forcing him on the U.S. bishops as president of their national council, then capping him in red even before his predecessor reaches 80? Remember that Dolan is now the mouthpiece of U..S. bishops as they lead an attempted invasion of our secular government, violating our Constitution that requires the healthy separation of religion and politics, church and state. All that was recognized in the wise comprehension of history by the Founders and Framers as the only healthy course for a genuine democracy.

Are there any Christians left who might be willing to serve as pope?
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Rick Santorum will soon be available and would be delighted. And there are plenty of precedents both for married popes and and for very rapid elevation from layman status up through the various clerical ranks.

I realize that it may sound cynical, but I think you're right, Jerry. I've learned from living inside large organizations that what gets rewarded gets done, hence the crop we're reaping now.

Jesus captured the minds and hearts of his followers as much by what he did as what he said. Leadership by example is key. Unless we have a pope who follows through on what he says (I don't think "teaching" is enough), the church will continue to be ineffectual in setting the tone for moral leadership in our troubled world.

Like many big organizations, the church will stumble along, but is that good enough? I think Jesus would be disappointed by this ineffectual, political and out-of-touch church that believers claim in his name. Although the church can and often is a force for good in our world, I am disappointed at the ongoing malaise and the failure in moral and governance leadership coming out of the Vatican and the episcopate at large.

Some basic human courtesy will be helpful here. Your comment is quite derogatory and divisive. If you want a perfect Church with no human weaknesses, you won't find any in your lifetime. Some compassion will be helpful.

I agree with your remarks, Jerry. It is not the mark of a real leader to just shuffle people around to different offices. The poor man, Benedict, is too old, too tired, and too indoctrinated to do any real good for the church. A strong leader would not just change people to different positions, but would eliminate the positions and create something different.

If we learned anything from the sexual abuse cover-up, it was that the old hierarchical system needs to be scrapped. The concepts of hierarchy and clericalism need to be put away along with the Middle Ages. Let's return this church to the People of God. If anyone questions that this system is totally broken, let them look at who was just made Cardinal in New York! There couldn't be a more persuasive argument for complete revolution!

And another off-the-subject question...when did you become the voice of the "People of God"?

Perhaps you should enter conclave?

dolan is very much inside the box.

look at his career, mainly in Rome, enough to be counted Italian.

no idea what's going on around the streets of New York, among the illegal, the homeless and the poor.

Love reading you, Mr. Allen, but I am with Dave on this one. Please don't encourage the top of the food chain's hubris when we need humble, sensible, nonclerical servant priests. If they are really serving God and the people, our leaders should never be stars, commodities, or "hot." (Copy to Rocco Palmo while we're at it.)

A thorough reform of the reform, a re-examination of the so called
fruits of Vatican II, is necessary if the Church is to survive. When the Church had the so called old Mass the pews were packed, the convents and seminaries filled, and the Church was generally healthy. Vatican II changed all of that. It has not been a springtime for the Church but a nuclear winter. The new Mass, with its plain tables, its communion in hand, its lay ministers, altar girls, bad music, guitars, bad vestments, and barren modern church architecture, has driven a considerable number of Catholics away. A hybrid Protestant-Catholic Church is not the answer; nuns in secular dress who like lesbian feminists, is not the answer. When I go to Mass, I don't want to see a lay person shouting out Good Morning; I don't want to see or hear happy clappy people aping evangelicals; I don't want to see a priest putting on a Mr. Cool show and giving his homily while he dances down the center aisle. I also don't want to see altar girls flipping their pony tails. I don't want the Mass to look and sound like a Lutheran Mass, I want it to be more like it was, more like the Orthodox Divine Liturgy, an organic whole, not a discombobulated patchwork hackjob put together with the help of six Protestant ministers. This is why Eastern Orthodoxy is becoming attractive to so many Catholics. Orthodoxy has kept tradition. Vatican II sent the Church on a spiral downward; the evidence is all around, from church architecture to liturgy to nuns in pants who look like lesbian feminists. The Church is in a sorry state. And it is getting worse, despite noble attempts at bringing back the Traditional Latin Mass.

Brian,
Interesting you would refer to his Pontificate as "reign."

Look at the photos. He appears to me to have lost a lot of weight somewhat recently.

Or...sign that the Holy See sees Dolan as the leader of the Church in the Americas? Depends on your point of view I guess. He was chosen to give an address to the Holy Father and College of Cardinals, as well as being elevated before Egan turned 80. Those are certainly not signs that he is looked down upon.