Pope Francis Among the Wolves: The Inside Story of a Revolution by Marco Politi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Vatican Follies

Not quite a revolution but certainly a cabinet shuffle.

Political parties are banned within the Catholic Church. The prohibition, of course, doesn't stop politics nor the creation of organised factions to promote policy changes. But the politics and factional rivalry resemble that of a Stalinist or Maoist state. Rumour and innuendo, not press conferences, are the preferred modes of communication.

Another complicating factor in Vatican politics is that religious belief is not entirely separate from organisational policy. This is evident, for example, in issues like the status of divorced Catholics. Their admission to sacraments is in one sense their own business since only God and their consciences know their spiritual state.

But to leave matters to God and conscience is not something senior clerics are wont to do. For them wars may be a matter of the toleration of human weakness, and clerical sexual perversion may demand understanding and charity. But the possibility of losing control over the marital status of Church-members demands strict and unambiguous policies. Who's in and who's out is the most fundamental corporate power. Mostly, the policies at issue involve not the inseparability of partners but church-control over separability. Only the Church can join; so only the Church can separate. It's about power not grace.

Pope Francis is having a pretty hard time trying to convince his fellow Princes of the Church that their mission is the salvation of souls through example and virtue rather than the preservation of organisational power by position and fiat. He's more or less equivalent to Donald Trump at a meeting of the American Civil Liberties Union and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

His colleagues know they can wait him out. And if they lose the occasional skirmish, well there is nothing that can't be corrected in time. Most of these men are what are called in America 'strict constructionists.' That is to say, they believe that the interpretation which they put on scriptural and other historical documents are definitive. Why? Because they are convinced of it, they are men of faith.

So unlike Stalinist or Maoist politics, Francis cannot condemn or even criticise his political opponents. They in turn cannot be seen to undermine much less depose him of the papal office. So a sort of ballet in slow motion is taking place within the Vatican. It is a dance that may not mean much to or for the rest of us, but only because it has been going on for so many centuries that the institution of the Church has already destroyed its own credibility and moral authority.

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