How The World Is Run

[poliphilo]

It happened again. They put the ballot papers on the fire and the smoke coming out the chimney was white. Everybody in the square was jumping up and down, weeping and clapping their hands- we have a new Pope! And then the smoke turned black. Sorry, folks, no Pope today.

Quaint.

But communicating by smoke signals isn't the half of it. We're choosing a man to fill one of the most powerful posts in the world and the electorate consists of a handful of (supposedly) celibate old gents in their seventies.

Why aren't we laughing?

This is the 21st centry, not the 14th.

But I guess you and I don't get to vote for the chairman of Microsoft either.

Comments

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

Oh, but it gets worse. Some 115 men who not only have little experience in the human experience because they are not fathers, businessmen, dock workers, farmers, people trying to make it from paycheck to paycheck, etc. but live in a world that prides itself in part on its removal from it, are being asked to crown a man who will inevitably make grand statements on the nature of that human experience and how it should be.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well, yes...

But it's our fault. We allow ourselves to be impressed and taken in by the robes and the processing and the fiction of papal authority.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

I have to say that I agree. As my latest entry makes abundantly clear, I'm absolutely obsessed with the formalism of the Catholic Church. One could call it an interest in the fashion of faith.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Do you know the ecclesiastical fashion show sequence in Fellini's Roma?

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

No?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

A mad old woman- a member of Rome's "black aristocracy" - stages a exhibition of ecclesiastical fashion in her huge, decaying palazzo. She invites all her fellow ghouls. Nuns and bishops process along the catwalk- wearing ever more outlandish costumes. The show ends with a vision of Pius IX in glory.

It's both a satire and a celebration. I think you'd like it.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

Interesting, I looked the movie up. Very interesting.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

I just noticed, we have a new pope. With the pomp and circumstance largely concluded, I'm free to go back to my largely godless existence.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ratzinger- scourge of the liberals- John Paul's enforcer.

Heigh-ho.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

C'mon holy spirit - we need you!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't think the Holy Spirit has much to do with what's going on in the Vatican today.

I think the Holy Spirit moved on to fresh climes and pastures new a long, long time ago.

About 1950 years ago.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

That's why we need s/he/it back!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well, the wind bloweth where it listeth- so there's always hope.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I don't think the Holy Spirit has much to do with what's going on in the Vatican today.

The fundamental problem, it seems to me, is that they think it does.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Exactly so.

And that millions of people world-wide agree with them.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that the "Holy Spirit" doesn't get a lot of mention anymore, almost like they're trying to phase it out.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The pentecostals and the charismatics have made it so the rest of us are a little afraid to talk about the spirit in case we're accused of happy-clappy "enthusiasm"

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I sometimes like the fact that we still hold onto old rites and rituals, even though there might be a better logistical way to do things. There is so little ritual in our lives now, and I think that's been to our detriment. It's so easy to laugh at someone who still adheres to rituals, but in some way, I think we've lost something that fed our psyche. Much like Joseph Campbell talks about the rites of passage between childhood and adulthood that are missing for young men now, and how he believes that's one reason we see such things as gangs and violent acts - the young men are instinctively seeking something to take the place of those old rites.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We have a need for ritual, certainly. But that doesn't mean it's necessarily good for us.

Ritual can be used to befuddle and obfuscate- to stop us from asking questions- to pull the wool over our eyes.

Tyrannies and autocracies are good at ritual.

Yes, it's very pretty and it feeds the soul, but, but.....

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, but along the same lines, it doesn't necessarily mean it's bad for us. But, I might point out some word semantics: if we have a "need" for something, that would seem to indicate it is, in fact, good for us. Along the lines of a need for air, water, food, etc. As opposed to a desire for something, which may or may not be good for us.

People often use the word "need" when what they really mean is "want": I need chocolate, I need another pair of shoes.

Are rituals a need or a want for humanity?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Hmm, good question.

All the signs are that human beings have been practising rituals since the very beginning.

I suspect our craving for them is something stronger than a want, but less absolute than a need.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

a rabbi once told me that he sometimes envied priests for their solitude, that it can be hard to sheperd a group of people and be their spiritual advisor when you have all the domestic distractions of a husband and father as well.

of course, it also makes them massively out of touch with the lives of the laity. but i think maybe both perspectives are important.

Eastern Catholic priests are allowed to marry, so i don't see why we can't allow all priests to make that decision for themselves.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But Catholic priests still have their sexual desires.

Unfulfilled sexuality may be just as distracting as married life.

A lot of priests hit the bottle.

And a lot (as we're finding out) abuse children.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

unfulfilled sexuality might be just as distracting as married life, you're right. but then again, it might not be. buddhism and hinduism teach that the path to enlightenment is through the renunciation of all worldly desires. however, it is a voluntary renunciation. i think the problem is not celibacy itself, but the fact that it is required by the church and not decided by the individual.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree with that. Voluntary renunciation is fine, but compulsory renunciation causes all sorts of problems.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

i just posted a bit of an article that i read in a catholic magazine yesterday. an another example of clergy communicating by smoke signal in an age of satellites, i suppose.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like it....

Pity they retired the silver hammer.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

yes, it seems kind of silly that they'd retire the silver hammer but keep the rest of the formal procedures. i wonder how they decide which archaic practices to continue, and which to discontinue.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I guess they thought the silver hammer laid them open to mockery.

"Bang, bang Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon his head,
Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer made sure that he was dead..."

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Okay, Tony, you have to see this, the real story!

Pope John Paul put it in his will, a big secret until Cynnerth figured it out.

I guess they are still bumping around in the Sistine Chapel, fighting over chairs, while Gregorian chants play and then suddenly stop.

I wonder what religion will be like in 200 more years? Will there still be a Roman Catholic Church?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's wonderful.

Who knows what the world will look like in 200 years time? Change comes so slowly that I'd expect the Catholic Church to be around in some form or another. But it might look rather different.

Perhaps there will be a female Pope.

[karenetaylor.livejournal.com]

I want them to display their complete trust in God, put all the eligible names into a hat (those pointy ones would hold a lot of names!) and pull one out.

Maybe that's what they do anyway. The smoke signals are just for show.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That would be great.

And if I remember correctly, it was more or less what the apostles did when they were looking for a replacement for Judas Iscariot.

"And the lot fell upon Matthias".

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I loved this.

"Those pointy ones would hold a lot of names!"

:)

You crack me up.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I guess they are still bumping around in the Sistine Chapel, fighting over chairs, while Gregorian chants play and then suddenly stop.

Jackie, you are EVIL! You made me laugh out loud at work.

I'm sorry. I'm getting more laughs out of this Pope stuff than any person should.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Well, read Karen Taylor's take on it, then (comment above me). She made me spit coffee on the keyboard!

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I read it. I'm still laughing!

<B>We're</B> choosing

[jubal51394.livejournal.com]

Now, I AM laughing!

Re: <B>We're</B> choosing

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well yes, but that's the point I'm making. We get lumbered with the guy and his pronouncements on this that and the other, but have no say in putting him there.