The Roman Catholic Church’s College of Cardinals, after intense prayer and guided by the Holy Spirit, has selected popes for nearly a millennium. Some Holy Fathers have turned out to be saints; others became murderers (Pope John XII), torturers (Pope Urban VI) and adulterers (too many to name).
Less reliance on faith and more, for example, on a democratized search for a pope might have kept the more notorious ones from office. And certainly a more practical belief that God had not ordained every pope to lead the church would have led to the quick firing of the most corrupt ones.
—William Lobdell, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America—and Found Unexpected Peace (2009), p. 161-2
Duh!
Haven’t you ever heard: “It’s a mystery, my son.” ?
No “mystery”, no church…
It’s hard to know exactly what goes on behind closed doors, but I am sure that selecting the pope still has quite a bit to do with politics, which means it is pretty much like every other organization with a leader.
Less reliance on faith and more, for example, on a democratized search…
The centralized authority of the Holy Roman Catholic Church (HRCC) is central to their theology and is not compatible with democracy. That the Pope, i.e. the bishop of Rome, is first among church leaders and is God’s favourite BFF on earth is literally what separates the HRCC from other Christian sects. If you want to go in for ideas of a theistic democracy in which God makes his selection known through the will of the people, you are most of the way to Protestantism.
Matt 18:18 Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Matt 16:19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
I loved Lobdell’s book, but suggesting that a more democratic approach to selecting a pope would lead to better popes, totally ignores the history of democracies… Italy elected Berlusconi. The United States elected George Bush… etc.
…germany elected hitler…
A democratically elected Pope? No way, that would totally undermine my belief in his infallibility!
lol – yeah, I don’t have much more faith in the general public than I do in the christian church to make wise decisions. In the US, they are still debating whether or not to provide basic health care to their citizens. Nuff said.
The Roman Catholic Church’s College of Cardinals, after intense prayer and guided by the Holy Spirit,
That might be the line that the RCC is selling, but that’s absolutely not what has happened throughout history.
You mean those guys that bought the papacy and then used its office to fill their family coffers and engage in every sort of licentiousness weren’t chosen by prayer and holy spirit?!
Say it ain’t so, Joe!
Thanks, Sherlock.
No problem, Holmes.
How can you tell?
Certainly Cardinal Ratzenberger was not, I believe, the choice of most of the body of the Church. After John Paul II it was expected that someone even more reform-minded might be chosen (despite current perception JPII was quite liberal in his theology). Sadly the College of Cardinals a) has only a limited selection available and b) is itself very conservative most of the time.
I disagree. The old white European men who run the church wanted another conservative pope. It is certain that one day the pope will come from the third world. A third world pope would probably have different view on family planning. Ratzenberger was just a way to delay that day.
I dunno if that’s true tbh…it seems that most of the african bishops, for example, are very clear that in their experience contraception isn’t a good idea
The selected text is so superficial.
Your comment is empty of content.
I hate it when that happens.
Do you?
Yeah, it’s a real bummer, man.
Is it?
It is.
*nod*
The ridiculousness of the method by which Popes are chosen — not to mention that it’s not necessarily a divinely-guided process — was betrayed by the period of Church history known as the Western Schism. It was a result of the Papacy’s return to Rome in 1376 after having been based in Avignon, France for nearly 7 decades. The College of Cardinals returned to Rome along with Gregory XI, and in 1378 elected his replacement, but later they reconvened, elected a new Pope to replace the replacement, and that fellow took up residence in Avignon again, thus created a competing Papacy.
This left two Colleges of Cardinals, one in Rome and another in Avignon, each electing its own line of Popes seated in each of those cities. Efforts to reconcile them fell apart after a few decades, so some of the Cardinals gave up, held a Council in Pisa, where in an ad-hoc College of Cardinals session, they elected a third Pope as an alternative to the previous two who refused to be accorded. This third line of Popes lasted for a few years — and even had a successor elected from this third College of Cardinals in Pisa — before finally, a fourth Pope was elected, and he eventually became the solo Pope, Martin V.
I can think of fewer more laughable periods in Church history … aside perhaps from the Cadaver Synod in 897, wherein the late Pope Formosus was dug up, enthroned, tried for misconduct, and posthumously convicted. (Perhaps as frosting on the cake of this debacle, the legality of this particular trial continued to be debated, with its results alternatively being reversed and affirmed over the next few years.)
The Papal period known as “the Pornocracy” might also qualify as Papal debacle on the same scale, however, there are some doubts as to the extent of how bad it was; we know about it only from late reports, which may be — and probably are! — exaggerated. So we can take that one off the table.
As for what the present-day meaning of these long-past historical events … that’s up to us to decide. I grant it’s very unlikely either of these things could ever happen again. Nevertheless they do indicate that the Roman Catholic Church’s inner workings are not nearly as “divine” or as well-inspired as the hierarchy might have us all believe. Pathetic events such as the Cadaver Synod or the Western Schism simply do not happen, if the Papacy is divinely-guided.
To their credit, the Catholic high school I attended taught me about the Western Schism.
Unless God is an imbecile, which I think might fit the data better than the perfection hypothesis.
You’re right, God might be an imbecile … but most Catholics don’t believe their God is an imbecile. So if there is a God after all, he can’t really be their God!
Or he could have a twisted sense of humour
That too! In which case the joke’s on the Catholics!
“God is malevolent” also fits the data better than “God is benevolent”.
Jeffrey Shallit reviews Lobdell’s book
nice, thanks
Will the next pope be from the third world?