Hold the Front Page! New Book Exposes Pope as Catholic
September 3, 2010
John L. Allen Jnr., a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter, has written an interesting, and long, review of a new, highly critical biography of Benedict XVI. The review makes for fascinating reading. Anyone unfamiliar with Allen's writing is missing a treat -- he writes well, is always provocative, gives a fine liberal Catholic take on his church, and knows the twists and turns of Vatican life and politics as well as anyone. The book also sounds fascinating -- and it's encouraging to know that Protestantism has no monopoly on nutters who think the Bilderberg Group run everything and we're heading to a one-creed one-government world enforced by little blue men in black helicopters.
What is interesting is the amount of space devoted by Allen, and presumably the authors of the bio, to Benedict's PR gaffes. Of course, given the dramatic changes in the way information is disseminated in the tweet-blog-smartphone world, it is hardly surprising that PR is not strong point in an organisation where one only reaches a position of authority at the age when most of us are looking longingly towards retirement. Further, some of the gaffes do indeed beggar belief, if the account given here is accurate.
Nevertheless, a number of said gaffes do seem merely to indicate that the Pope is -- wait for it -- Catholic. For example, criticism of condoms (not a viewpoint with which I agree, but then, unlike writers for the NCR, I am not a Catholic) would seem to be consistent with -- indeed, required by -- Catholic teaching. (I can only assume that the sequel volume will address the lavatorial habits of those bears who live in them there woods). And getting into trouble for connecting Muhammad with violence? Well, while it would be arrant nonsense to say all Muslims are terrorists or violent, the connection between Islam and violence is not simply the construct of the bigoted Western white man -- or even the man in white; it is also a connection made in a myriad suicide videos, many available on the web, where some ridiculous dead-eyed teenage twit pledges to kill for -- guess who? -- Allah and his Prophet, the aforementioned Muhammad. Perhaps more attention might be paid to such gentlemen than to the poor old Pope who, as far as I know, hasn't actually killed anybody recently.
Doubtless, the current incumbent of the Vatican is the victim of the success and indeed the strategy of his predecessor, who made the Papacy a celebrity institution; though as a Pole enjoying his heyday in the late 70s and 80s, he truly came at just the right moment to do such a thing, with his defiant anti-Communist message and slow, ponderous, Johnny Cashski voice with all of its eerie, granular gravitas. It is doubtful if such a figure would have played much better with the current effete PC crowd. The classroom teacher and administrator known as the Panzerkardinal was always going to struggle with his public image.
There is a salutary lesson here: the time has come when fidelity to confession and good PR are probably mutually exclusive. What is writ large in the pontificate of Benedict XVI will be writ small in the challenges facing a thousand small evangelical congregations and denominations in the next decade, as orthodox positions on a host of issues come to be seen as ridiculous and sometimes even vile by the wider world. PR will be the only orthodoxy; orthodoxy will be the only heresy.
And as a postscript: I have often said to students that if you don't have sufficient theological reason not to be a Catholic, you should become one. I might say that a similar thing applies to writers like John Allen on the other side: if you don't have sufficient theological reason to be a Catholic, you should probably stop being one. There is a term applicable to the thinking of those Christians who consider that the Pope is an embarrassment, has got Islam wrong and should get with the program on condoms, homosexuality, women's ordination etc: it's known as `Liberal Protestantism.' It doesn't actually work and consistently empties churches; but it isn't illegal and it is pretty good at PR.
What is interesting is the amount of space devoted by Allen, and presumably the authors of the bio, to Benedict's PR gaffes. Of course, given the dramatic changes in the way information is disseminated in the tweet-blog-smartphone world, it is hardly surprising that PR is not strong point in an organisation where one only reaches a position of authority at the age when most of us are looking longingly towards retirement. Further, some of the gaffes do indeed beggar belief, if the account given here is accurate.
Nevertheless, a number of said gaffes do seem merely to indicate that the Pope is -- wait for it -- Catholic. For example, criticism of condoms (not a viewpoint with which I agree, but then, unlike writers for the NCR, I am not a Catholic) would seem to be consistent with -- indeed, required by -- Catholic teaching. (I can only assume that the sequel volume will address the lavatorial habits of those bears who live in them there woods). And getting into trouble for connecting Muhammad with violence? Well, while it would be arrant nonsense to say all Muslims are terrorists or violent, the connection between Islam and violence is not simply the construct of the bigoted Western white man -- or even the man in white; it is also a connection made in a myriad suicide videos, many available on the web, where some ridiculous dead-eyed teenage twit pledges to kill for -- guess who? -- Allah and his Prophet, the aforementioned Muhammad. Perhaps more attention might be paid to such gentlemen than to the poor old Pope who, as far as I know, hasn't actually killed anybody recently.
Doubtless, the current incumbent of the Vatican is the victim of the success and indeed the strategy of his predecessor, who made the Papacy a celebrity institution; though as a Pole enjoying his heyday in the late 70s and 80s, he truly came at just the right moment to do such a thing, with his defiant anti-Communist message and slow, ponderous, Johnny Cashski voice with all of its eerie, granular gravitas. It is doubtful if such a figure would have played much better with the current effete PC crowd. The classroom teacher and administrator known as the Panzerkardinal was always going to struggle with his public image.
There is a salutary lesson here: the time has come when fidelity to confession and good PR are probably mutually exclusive. What is writ large in the pontificate of Benedict XVI will be writ small in the challenges facing a thousand small evangelical congregations and denominations in the next decade, as orthodox positions on a host of issues come to be seen as ridiculous and sometimes even vile by the wider world. PR will be the only orthodoxy; orthodoxy will be the only heresy.
And as a postscript: I have often said to students that if you don't have sufficient theological reason not to be a Catholic, you should become one. I might say that a similar thing applies to writers like John Allen on the other side: if you don't have sufficient theological reason to be a Catholic, you should probably stop being one. There is a term applicable to the thinking of those Christians who consider that the Pope is an embarrassment, has got Islam wrong and should get with the program on condoms, homosexuality, women's ordination etc: it's known as `Liberal Protestantism.' It doesn't actually work and consistently empties churches; but it isn't illegal and it is pretty good at PR.
