Ian blew chunks all over the living floor this afternoon, so a brief post before I go check on him as he sleeps feverishly on our bed. It’s very dangerous to have a kid with a stomach virus in your bed, so he’ll have to be moved soon.
Tonight I’m thinking about the Pope. Growing up in a very traditional, Catholic family, the pope was always in the background. My mom is an Italian Catholic. Italian Catholics take their saints and their icons very seriously. The holy pontiff smiles beneficently over their bed, next to a cross and a picture of a hooded saint (his name escapes me at the moment). Dad is an intellectual Catholic and read Pope John Paul II’s theological treatises eagerly. The pope was always around, but received little thought from me, shallow creature that I am.
Today I’m thinking about him. I’ve been surfing around to get commentary. For the blogger that wrote that the Pope is responsible for the spread of AIDs in Africa, I give a bemused smile. Please. The Islamic countries in Africa have a far harsher line on birth control and sex than the Catholics, and their AIDS rate is zero. Others have pointed to crisis in the Catholic church that occurred during his tenure. Some have pointed to his strong position on the errors of communism. I don’t think that anyone has written about his harsh criticism of unregulated capitalism, so there now I said it. He also made a historic apology to the Jews for the lack of action by the Catholic church during the holocaust.
What I am most interested in tonight is numbers. There are 1 billion Catholics worldwide. 1 billion. The population of China, which by the way has 12 million Catholics. Unlike other major religions, the Catholic church is hierarchically organized with one guy at the helm. Unlike nation-states, these Catholics are distributed across the globe, not bound by geographic location.
That’s a lot of potential power held in check. Yes, give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, but what if he didn’t? What if he weighed in on issues more serious than prophylactics? He could sway national elections. There are some signs that the American bishop are becoming more politically confrontational, but what if efforts were orchestrated and financed by Rome?
I think one of the testaments to the recent line of popes is that they haven’t used their 1 billion worshippers to interfere with the ways of nation states. They have played a backseat to the leaders of the nations of the world. Yes, there have been criticism and quiet rebukes, but nothing major. Political restraint should be remembered as one of the best qualities of the John Paul II. Who knows what the next pope will do.
Apt. 11d 
That’s true. I have to remind myself that these Pope fellows could always be worse.
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But the Catholic church is hardly homogenous. I don’t think he could mobilize all 1 billion Catholics to do something in unison. I suppose he could probably urge people to have demonstrations or push for given legislation, but unless highly committed Catholics are a large bloc in their given country, they won’t be able to effect much political change on his say so. So I’m not sure how much actual power he wields, in a political sense.
He seems more like a celebrity to me than a political power; someone who is loved from a distance, through a haze of glamor, not someone who commands and compels immediate action from all his followers.
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Obviously at one point the Pope (as in hundreds of years ago) did all these nation shaping and bending activities. The Papacy has changed.
And yes, the papal restraint you mention was definitely a part of JPII. Even to the point of restraining some priests. My cousin is a priest and was a Congressman for ten years– until the Holy See put out an order that all priests retire from politics. Many people thought my family member would retire from the priesthood before politics, but he’s still a priest… Now, whether or not you agree with this mandate from the Holy See is another matter. With my cousin, his politics were distinctly of the liberal nature, so naturally I’d like to see more priests like him in politics, but the converse is so much more likely that I don’t chaff too much at the late Pope’s decision. And I suppose that I would hope of all the things I hope might change with a new pope, this is one decision that might be better left in place.
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I sort of made a Pope post, but not really. You can check it out.
Interesting thought about the “power” of the Pope. But I agree with emjaybee here. How many Americans are Catholics first and Americans second? Not enough to topple the state, I’m sure. Being “Catholic”, like everything else, is something that occurs in degrees.
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Jay, nice post!
Yeah, I’m sure that being Catholic is a matter of degree. I’m certainly on a different degree, if not on an entirely different spectrum, than my parents.
I suspect that American and European Catholics are less enamored with the pope than Catholics in other parts of the world. Think what he could do in Latin America.
Maybe the pope hasn’t used that power, because he knows that the Western hemisphere would largely ignore him and, thus, delegitimizing himself. I’m not sure. But he could probably make a huge mess of things just the same.
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I’d be more worried about what the Pope could do in Africa, particularly regarding a holy war between Catholics and Muslims. I don’t think it would happen directly; the current Pope has left an interfaith tradition that the next one won’t be able to discard. But a push to “convert heathens” or “spread the faith” could have a similar deleterious effect.
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A wonderful post.
I’ve been thinking about this pope. Most have tried to fit him within the left-right American political spectrum, when he doesn’t really fit there.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this pope and looking for a simplification to explain his philosophy. I’ve come across this idea that I’ve mentioned in other places.
If people disagree with the Catholic Church’s stance on solutions to questions of AIDS/abortion, it is nevertheless true that it is possible for people to have sex less often with fewer people without detriment to overall happiness. If markets happen to be the most efficient method for running an economy at a high level, it is nevertheless true that economic actions dictated by the marketplace sometimes hurt individual people immensely. Undisciplined sexuality and unrestrained capitalism both have their roots in the same self-interested mentality, which the Church opposes. For John Paul II, people should have a relative amount of freedom, so long as they are not egregiously and irresponsibly selfish. What behavior satisfies that condition is up for debate. If he was less progressive than liberals in the Church would have liked, he was still more progressive than arch-traditionalists were comfortable with.
Now, others may say that the Church did not implement this idea perfectly, but I think it is reasonably simplified philosophical underpinning that draws together many of the stances of this man. While some may argue whether John Paul II would have agreed more with the Democrats or the Republicans, I think it is clear that he would have preferred either to communists or libertarians.
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Nice comment, Anthony. JPII’s cultural critique of the West basically came down to an insistence that the self is obliged to others, that it must be taught to recognize the truth of moral restraint; in that light, his social conservatism/economic progressivism is not only coherent, but I think enormously powerful. Too bad neither the left (my preference) nor the right in the U.S. seems capable or willing to respond to such a cross-ideological call. (I meant to write something about this on Monday, and maybe will get around to it today.)
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Greeting cards by tsunami-hit children
Nagapattinam, Dec 24: The tsunami might have played havoc with their lives. Yet for children with artistic talent it gave them an opportunity to serve the cause of orphans. Sale of greeting cards made of paintings by the tsunami affected children in Na…
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