Saturday, April 02, 2005

John Paul 2, his heritage, opinion

"I believe this pope is far too spiritual for that [power] to be his motive."
--CF commenting on the words of Hans Kung that the motive of this pope was power.

My response: Consciously yes, unconsciously no.

Even those who are deeply spiritual can be very blind to themselves and the effect their
personality and policies have on others. Faith and devotion is no protection from blindness to oneself.

What is missing in this church and in every church is any recognition of the power of the Unconscious, or the Shadow. I tried to talk to our past local bishop many times about the power of transference and counter-transference and the absence of celibate understanding of sexuality, to help prevent abuse of priestly celibacy. He could not hear me ever, and scandals exploded with great local harm to the church, which were found to include himself.

Furthermore, we humans will always attempt to make the bad, the downside, even the horrible (when we stoop to look at all and many will not) more acceptable, more inspiring because we do not deal well with shattered meaning that can never be made good.

The maintenance of the prerogatives of hierarchy above and beyond the local and regional bishops and the insistence that the Vatican agenda had to prevail even in the regional episcopal conferences; the demand that celibacy could not be discussed in regional meetings of bishops, then later demanding a vote affirming celibacy at the end of the conference is an example of feudal power, which RC hierarchy still practices.

To be a servant of the servants of God, means one listens to everyone, including women, victims of sexual abuse (yes), and those who think differently than you do, and those who dissent.

Benedict in his Holy Rule, said the Abbot should listen to the youngest of the community, and the stranger who came to the gate "because the Christ may speak through them."

In his refusal to re-examine the RC teaching that contraception is an intrinsic moral evil, this pope has condemned many to death (via AIDS and poverty)

The kind of pope we get next will be the best measure of John Paul's legacy. One like John 23rd comes once in a thousand years.

By the way, those of who are clerics or whose main work or emotional life has been inside this religious system, do not realize that organizations per se, cannot tolerate dissent or the whistleblower. Organizations at every level, government, NPO's and business, will isolate, ostracize and demean the dissenters who call that organization to be true to its own mission and principles.

See Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power. by C. Fred Alford. Cornell U. Press, 2001.
Namaste, discussion?
Paschal Baute
April 2, 2005

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