What the Pope and Trump (may) have in common

Last updated on: September 10, 2018 at 6:58 am by Jane the Actuary

What the Pope and Trump (may) have in common 2018-09-10T06:58:48-06:00 Jane the Actuary

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

It strikes me that defenses of Catholicism such as

https://twitter.com/mpakaluk/status/1039104362147143680

which came across my twitter feed, increasingly have as a theme, the core idea that this isn’t the first time bishops and possibly even the Pope have been shown to have feet of clay, both respect to the individual bishops who have reassigned abusive priests without even any particular repentance afterwards or who have been abusers themselves, and with respect to the bulk of the bishops who are dragging their feet on putting into place concrete actions in response, not to mention the Pope’s refusal to open up the archives which might settle questions of Vigano’s accusations. We’ve had plenty such bishops and popes yet the Catholic faith has continued on despite them.

Now, as a brief digression, I should say that I am not particularly pleased when this mutates into statements (paraphrased) of

Reports of corruption by bishops (or abuse by priests) will never cause me to lose my faith, because my faith is in God, not men.

If someone says they lost their faith because of clergy scandals, they never really had faith in the first place, because they put their trust in men, not God.

You’ve likely seen these as inspiration memes with flowery text coming across your twitter feed. And while there is a kernel of truth, at the same time, at the same time, exactly how often have we heard that tired bit about “use words if necessary” and the claim that we don’t really have to talk about Jesus in order to preach the Gospel because we can just be upstanding people and everyone around us will say, “wow, she’s so loving and caring and really works hard to help other people; if this is what Christians are like, maybe I should consider being one”? If we expect that the saints are our role models, and good, upstanding Christians in our own time can bring people to Christ, then it is entirely reasonable for others to say, “if being committed to following Christianity doesn’t help one behave in a less sinful way than everyone else around them, what’s the point?” when we have such visible instances of sinfulness. I mean, sure, we could put together a statistical analysis of the level of corruption and scheming for money and power among churchmen vs. in the secular world, but we all know that we process things by looking at individuals rather than statistical analyses.

But here we are. The Pope is prattling on about the virtue of silence and preventing investigation of Vigano’s claims. The USCCB has announced its intent to have an investigation at some point in the future and seems to think that’s good enough. Individual bishops are calling for more — but, let’s face it, those seem to be individual bishops of small dioceses, and hence, men without the power to actually have an impact, in the unfortunate system of assigning to archbishops of archdioceses with the largest populations, the greatest power. Cardinal Wuerl has pretty much given the middle finger to the Catholics in his diocese, with an open acknowledgment that “the archdiocese would be well served by new leadership,” but hoping that he’ll be able to distract everyone with a “Season of Healing.”

And I’m starting to wonder if one possible path this all takes, if bishops and the Pope continue along a path of silence and inaction, along with professed support for victims and a Cupichian desire to make it all go away in order to continue with their political agenda, and if Catholics who seek the truth about cover-up accusations are stymied at every turn, is that we as Catholics begin to look at our leadership as, well, men who are there to accomplish the practical tasks of running the church, who are chosen for their ability to money-grub and politick, to be judged for their success in church-running metrics, not for their holiness, not the examples of their lives, not that far apart from the way many Trump supporters (or Trump accepters) view him: “of course he’s not a role model for his behavior in his personal life; that is all quite troubling. But the economy is strong, and he’s placed one person on the Supreme Court, and will shortly have placed another, who we expect to protect us from more far-left decisions like Roe or Obergefell, and that’s what I judge him on.”

Of course, given that the so-called “Francis effect” of people lavishing praise on the Pope did not extend to any concrete effects in terms of mass attendance or numbers of people identifying as Catholic in polls, it’s hard to consider this a success either.

Image: from Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/113018453@N05/14037472464

Uncategorized

Pope Francis

USCCB

Previous Post

September 8, 2018

A few bits of family and personal update

Next Post

September 11, 2018 Some Cover-up Crisis links

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Actuarial/Retirement Issues Politics Uncategorized

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 December 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 August 2021 June 2021 April 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How tall was Goliath according to the Bible?

Select your answer to see how you score.

About 9 feet 9 inches About 8 feet About 10 feet 5 inches About 6 feet 5 inches