Peter And John Paul
Apr. 9th, 2005 08:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloI'm in the middle of reading Roger Lewis's enormous Life And Death Of Peter Sellers- which runs to over 1,000 pages. Sellers was always peculiar, but career success drove him over the edge into full blown paranoid schizophrenia. Oddly enough, his madness never affected his art- and he was as capable of giving wonderfully sensitive performances at the end of his career as he was at the beginning (though the films he graced with those amazing performances were frequently wrecked by his wayward behaviour.)
A little money, a little power- and Sellers turned into the Emperor Nero. As I've been reading this 20th century morality tale I've been thinking about the Pope. John Paul II was an immeasurably stronger character than poor Peter, but what did it do to him to be elevated to a position where he had no equals, where there was God, then himself as the unique mouthpiece of God and then, very far below him, everybody else?
Did he have doubts? Did he ever wonder whether he might be wrong in the opinions he laid down as law? And did he have any friends? Peter didn't; it's very hard for the powerful to have friends; people are afraid of them. So was there a secret room in the Vatican where John Paul could slob around in a tee-shirt with his shoes kicked off, drinking beer with his cronies, watching TV? Were there people around him who called him Karol? People who were allowed to tease and twit and criticise?
Seems unlikely, doesn't it?
And if he never came off duty, never allowed himself to be vulnerable, how inhuman he must have become!
A little money, a little power- and Sellers turned into the Emperor Nero. As I've been reading this 20th century morality tale I've been thinking about the Pope. John Paul II was an immeasurably stronger character than poor Peter, but what did it do to him to be elevated to a position where he had no equals, where there was God, then himself as the unique mouthpiece of God and then, very far below him, everybody else?
Did he have doubts? Did he ever wonder whether he might be wrong in the opinions he laid down as law? And did he have any friends? Peter didn't; it's very hard for the powerful to have friends; people are afraid of them. So was there a secret room in the Vatican where John Paul could slob around in a tee-shirt with his shoes kicked off, drinking beer with his cronies, watching TV? Were there people around him who called him Karol? People who were allowed to tease and twit and criticise?
Seems unlikely, doesn't it?
And if he never came off duty, never allowed himself to be vulnerable, how inhuman he must have become!
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-10 03:56 am (UTC)Part of it, certainly, is fellowship. The pleasure and joy we get when we gather with others who have the same beliefs we do. That fellowship leads to a sense of belonging, which most humans crave. "I belong here. These people are like me." Not that we want to completely lose our sense of individuality, but most of us want to feel like there are others out there with whom we have at least something in common.
Another part is, like it or not, anarchy in any form just doesn't work all that well. Churches provide governance and guidance. Otherwise, we might have a lot more people committing heinous acts, saying "Well, Jesus spoke to me and told me to do it." Or "My religion requires me to sacrifice a virgin each month on the full moon." And so forth.
Is it perfect? No. Do Churches make terrible mistakes, commit violence themselves? Yes. But I don't think anarchy is the answer to that.
Did any of that make any sense?
no subject
Date: 2005-04-10 04:24 am (UTC)"Churches" aren't going to go away any time soon. We need them.