The Catholic Clergy – the last of the true princes
I was reading the Friday morning papers – all about the resignation of Cardinal Law. I will not go into my opinion on the doing of the Catholic Church and its behavior in the last few months. Many people have written on it, and I have nothing to add. While reading, something struck me as odd. I could not put my finger on it for quite some time, but finally I realized what it had to do with. There was something very peculiar, even foreign, in the way the Catholic Church was described, vis-à-vis its laity. The oddity came across as very strange, so I tried to get to the bottom of it.
Back in the Middle Ages, the general perception of the ruling king was that of God’s representative on earth. To obey the king was to obey God – the notion goes back to Greek mythology, where kings are offsprings of the denizens of Olympus. As time went by, the direction of the relationship changed, and the King (while not elected in any way), became a representative of the people to God. The relationship became thus much more democratic, and today (at least in Europe), royalty is a purely symbolic tax burden.
A similar process took place in Christianity. With Martin Luther, the relationship between man and God became much more direct. The church, while still a mediator, was there to mediate for the benefit of people rather than deliver news from above. But the Reformation did not do away with the Catholic .Cchurch. Further, the vow of celibacy taken by Catholic clergy further removes them from the experience of men. It works both ways – on the one hand one feels that one deals with someone who is somewhat “not of this world,” and on the other hand, there is a sense that the priest can never truly relate to you as a person (I qualify this by stating that I am and never have been a Catholic). Either way, I always felt that a Catholic priest was always much more revered by and to some degree removed from the parishioners. This distance adds to the attitude that I gleaned from the Friday papers, and to some degree helped me to figure out what it was: The Catholic church is the last institution with actual political and economic power that feels that it, and its power are both imposed and justified from above. I never met a ruling monarch with real power, but my guess is that is how one would come across if one were to be miraculously produced – distant, haughty, with a strong sense of purpose for which I would be a tool, to dispense of if necessary.
I think it is this attitude that may bring to the undoing of the Catholic Church. The horrid way in which the Church behaved underscored the attitude of power derived from above for the purpose of ruling those who are below (with the benefit of those below, no doubt about it). If the church were to be completely undone it would be a very unfortunate thing. I personally know many people who were born and grew up in Boston, who benefited greatly through the intervention of the Church. There is a great deal of good that is being done by the Church, with the Church’s money every day. Genuine and far-flung reform could save the institution and allow the majority of its clergy to continue to do the good they have committed themselves to. Without reform, the institution is showing serious signs of withering.
5:58:01 AM 
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