Well, Ed, I still think your perspective is skewed. You are looking at the Catholic Church through a purely Machiavellian perspective. There was validity in a Machiavellian perspective in the Middle Ages - but even then, the Pope was one of many power brokers in Europe; and the ultimate power rested in a balance among all those centers of power, not in any one individual. You don't seem to be able to let go of your thinking that the the Pope is (or was) an absolute dictator. Church history shows quite clearly that the Catholic Church was never an absolute dictatorship, even though it appeared to be so on paper. An org chart is a two-dimensional view of an organization, and most org charts show a supreme authority on top with lots of powerless worker bees on the bottom. Managers like to think that's the way their organizations work, but managerial thought is rarely accurate.

In actuality, every organization has many power centers, some constructive and some destructive; and the most effective power is only rarely at the top. I would say that it would be more correct to say that instead of being strictly a top-down hierarchy, the Catholic Church is a loosely-connected network of old-boy clubs. While they share the same faith and doctrine worldwide, dioceses operate with very little direction from Rome. HOWEVER, there is an old-boy network of bishops that consists of strong ties within nations and looser international ties. Men who were groomed to become bishops were sent to national seminaries like the North American College in Rome, where the old-boy networks of bishops have their roots. Those destined to become parish priests went to local or regional seminaries, where their own old-boy networks had their roots. I don't know how it is in other nations, but the priests who were able to raise money and build buildings were the ones with the most power in the U.S.

It appears that in the twentieth century, the power center of the old boys network of the Catholic Church in Ireland was the Archbishop of Dublin - not the Pope in Rome. And even the Archbishop was not an all-knowing authority. Religious orders have always been largely autonomous, often in conflict with the power structures of the dioceses where they operate. Bishops - even the unusually powerful Archbishop of Dublin - have little power to affect what happens within religious orders.

And still, it you look only at the tops of dioceses and religious orders, you're not getting a realistic picture. The rule that "all politics is local" applies very strongly to the Catholic church. Ultimately, whatever good or bad that happens in the Catholic Church, happens at the local level - with authorities in the diocese and Rome having very little knowledge or control. And it has always been that way - you can see the same phenomenon in the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of Paul. And it would be a mistake to think that lay people are completely powerless. Some are, but most parishes are at least partly controlled by powerful groups of lay people.

I'm not denying any of the problems or scandals of the Catholic Church. What I'm saying that if you want to understand and cure those problems, you have to have a realistic understanding of the institution - and an org chart understanding is just not realistic. I think you'll get a more realistic view of the Catholic Church if you see it as a body riddled with cancer. Some parts of a cancerous body remain healthy, and continue to function normally until the entire body dies. Now, the head of the body may or may not be healthy, but most likely you'll have little effect on the cancer by replacing the head. Now, please note that cancer grows in separate parts of the body, and tends to spread from one part to another. To cure the cancer, you have to treat ALL the cancerous parts, not the head.

To a large part, Mudcatters have an overly simplistic understanding of the child molestation scandal in the Catholic Church. As they see it, the Pope failed to control the bishops, who in turn failed to control the priests. As Ed explained it, the Pope is the boss of the bishops, who boss the priests, who boss the people - so, according to his logic, everybody failed to boss properly. Some have described the Catholic Church as a "child abuse conspiracy," and that's not really the case, either. While child molestation and abuse have been widespread in the Catholic Church, there are many parts of the Church where such scandals did not happen at all.

I know it's hard for some people to accept, but all of those crimes of child molestation and child abuse were committed by individuals, not by their superiors and not by their institutions. Each of these crimes was an autonomous act of an individual. Now, there need to be structures to root out and control these criminals, but it should be remembered that ultimately it is the individual who commits the crime. Bishops and others committed cowardly crimes by covering up acts of child abuse, but the coverups were done mostly to protect power and finances, not as some sort of conspiracy to abuse and molest children. And if the problem is to be brought under control, it must be understood that bishops have a very limited ability to control their priests and lay people. If a crime of child molestation happens within a family, to what extent is the family to blame? The same principle applies to a church. A church is no more able to control the actions of its members, than a family is able to control its members. There is some control and some responsibility in both situations, but that control and responsibility are limited. Child molestation is a very complex problem, and it cannot be resolved simply by a proper execution of authority. On the other hand, it will become far worse if people in authority ignore or cover up the problem.

I suppose you could propose that the Catholic Church solve its child abuse problem by operating on a strict, hierarchical authority structure, and some people think it does operate. But who would want to belong to an organization that is totally controlled by a benevolently dictatorial Old Guy in Rome? Yeah, there are a few extreme right-wing wackos who claim to obey only the Pope; but mostly they obey what they think the Pope ought to be saying. Catholics find the center of their spirituality in their parishes, not in Rome.

So, get this straight: the Catholic Church is not an org chart with the Pope at the top. It is a complex, highly political organism with an infinite number of largely autonomous power centers. Nothing significant in the Catholic Church can be accomplished by the command of one man, even if that man is sometimes called the Vicar of Christ on Earth. It just ain't that simple.

But nonetheless, Church politics is fascinating, and I've studied it all my life.

-Joe-