Ratzinger in America

It's pretty clear that I bear no great love towards the Church (capitalized for identification purposes only). That said, as with all things in this world, I cannot help but consider it from various perspectives, and try to get to some truth as I perceive it. What caught my eye this time was a confluence of Catholic-related news, highlighted by the Pope's visit in the US.

Pope John Paul II's pit bull cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, held mass in Yankee Stadium on his last day in the US. At that mass, he called on young people to dedicate their lives to God, basically to enter convents, monasteries, and seminaries.

Now let's think about that, and not laugh, shall we?

A day doesn't go by without yet another ridiculous, and sorrowful flap involving some priest somewhere. I get news from both Poland and the US, so I get to hear twice as many stories. Like the one from a couple of months ago, about the Diocese in Szczecin (Stettin) categorically denying that one of their former priests abused young boys, and this in the face of multiple victims' reports and accusations. The priest in question was already long gone from the diocese, of course.

There's the Boston mess from a few years ago. There's the Alaska mess, where entire villages were terrorized by itinerant priests sent to "service" the area. There are six bishoprics in the US that are currently in Chapter 11 bankrupcy because they cannot bear the strain of the payments to victims of sexual abuse who won cases against them. And then there's the one today of an entire class of seventh-graders who were told during a lesson by the priest that homosexuality is deviant and unacceptable. When a girl in the class disagreed (bringing new hope and rejoicing in my mind), the priest requested that they describe a homosexual act. She refused. When a boy agreed with the girl, the priest called him a homosexual, and asked that his mom show up for consultation.

The worst part about this last event is that the priest denied all of it on public television, in spite of the fact that an entire class of kids all heard the same, and agree to the letter. The conservative television tried to exonerate the priest, who compared his suffering with that of Christ, but the parents of the children protested loudly, and some correction was made. The end result? Some of the kids were pulled from the classes by their parents.

Some word of explanation to this. Polish kids are expected to attend religion classes (read: Catholic indoctrination) but can be excused from attending by the parents. Unfortunately, there is still such strong social pressure on the children and the parents, that few refuse attendance, and it takes some really extreme behavior to cause it.

But this post is not about Poland. There is another place I have, for rants about that. This is about Ratzinger, and his delusional request to today's American youth as the Pope.

The man is clearly conservative. He's brought back traditional mass (in Latin with the priest facing away from the congregation), he's made some off-color remarks about other faiths, and is pushing a return to "traditional" values in the church. This of course includes the issue of celibate priests, and male-only priests.

So when he asks America's youth to enter the priesthood, one has to wonder whether he's extremely confused about reality, or whether he knows something commoners like me don't. Maybe he knows there is a conservative backlash coming. Maybe he senses that there is going to be a return to traditional values after the excesses of the new millennium.

I prefer to bet that he's just very delusional, as many very old people are, and incapable of thinking "out of the box". He has spent many years lamenting the liberalization of all that he held dear, and now has a chance, a few decades too late, to try to institute his policies. In the meantime the world has passed him by, and the best one can do is to shake one's head in pity. And unless he's angling for a new generation of pedophiles to join the ranks of the church (after all, there aren't enough priests to go around any more, because frankly, why would anyone want to do that?), I'm not sure what good his appeal will do. If anything, it will swell the ranks of the Protestant churches, since at least there you can get married and have kids. Or be a female pastor.

The big percentage of the Catholic population in this country, the immigrants, are also going to quickly escape his holiness. After all, they come from regimes where the Catholic church often stands equal to the highest authority in the land, sometimes even higher. Now they come to a country where one can question (again, for a few years there things looked dicey), one can disagree with authority, and where one can speak out against injustice (to some extent, let's not get ahead of ourselves). Compared to the old country, these new freedoms help those who had no choice earlier to realize that they don't have to do as "Father Martinez" tells them. Their children, brought up traditionally, can't help but be exposed to the freedoms that maybe the parents don't fully understand. And so, the iron grip of the church is loosened on the society it used control absolutely in ages past, and potential priests go off into the real world, choosing other paths. And where the protection that the church offers, along with the ready access to innocent children draws those worst elements of society, thus reinforcing an already existing problem.

A final thought, a little off-topic. I'm glad my wife is a free-thinking open-minded individual. It makes life a lot easier. We recently had a conversation about Toby's birth, and whether it meant a baptism or not. If we were in Poland, the social, cultural, familial, and official pressures would be so strong, that it would be difficult to avoid a baptism within three months of birth. Here in America, we have a choice. This led me to thinking about how prideful Catholic baptism is. The church assumes that you will be a Catholic, and that it wouldn't even cross your mind to be anything else, and so, to ostensibly save your soul in case something tragic happens, you get baptised soon after birth, without any say in the matter.

If you read the bible, it in many places identifies baptism as a voluntary acceptance of Christ as one's Lord and Saviour, and a sign to the world that you have made this decision. I'm not sure about you, but last I checked, a three-month-old baby doesn't really have the capacity for such philosophy. And so the baptism after birth becomes yet another tool of the church to force conformance and acceptance of Catholic authority over the populace.

Bottom line is: Toby will get baptised when he decides he wants to. Sylwia and I will not make the decision for him. There are many choices out there, and we live in a multi-cultural, multi-faith country with freedom of choice.

Singularity

Am I the only one freaked out by the pace of communications technology progress? It takes a moment for me to realize that I was alive when instant communication with my entire social sphere was impossible. The concept existed only in sci-fi movies at best. Going to the store, and forgetting the list meant making the trip twice. Today, I just call the wife, remind myself what was on the list, and voila!

Late for a meeting? Not sure where to meet up? Catching up with friends out on the town? Nothing simpler. Just whip out the cell. How did people meet 20 years ago? 

The thing is, that's about as far as my imagination takes me. A sure sign of getting older. I just discovered "twittering" as a concept. Actually, I was informed of what it was, after quizzically staring at the word in an article, and asking someone better versed in the medium. Why in the world would I want to tell the world in short blurbs what I was doing/thinking/feeling/expecting/dealing with/hoping/...? And how would I find the time to constantly update this information a dozen times a day or more? Don't these people work for a living?

I reached a few conclusions about this. No guarantee that they're correct, but they're mine. And, after all, I'm writing a blog, so obviously I expect someone to read what I'm writing, maybe.

Anyway, fact is, humans are lonely. And scared. And they feel insignificant in this big universe. So, having a voice that goes out as far as electromagnetic waves can carry it is reassuring. It makes us feel significant. I exist, hear me think!

And, I'm getting older. I always wondered how it was that a generational gap could exist. Weren't the ways of thinking of the young obvious and clear? Now I look at the behavior of teenagers and wonder how they could do what they do. How does one maintain a virtual presence one's entire day and night? How is it possible to function while having a dozen virtual conversations at once, while listening frantically to music clips, and finishing homework, and sending text messages, and twittering, updating your mySpace page, Facebook, etc? I'm relatively hip, I have a Facebook profile, and I know how to text, and use IM, and even have a blog, but my engagement is nowhere close to that of the future generation.

And social structures are changing faster today than at any time in history. The speed and ease of electronic communication is slowly erasing the need for direct personal contact. On one hand this is lamentable, and many have made the usual strong statements about the deterioration and fall of civilization. On the other hand, there are new forms of connecting that have created bonds at times stronger than the traditional ones. Look at World of Warcraft, and MySpace, and social networking in its various forms. You can more regularly let others know what you're about, you can represent yourself much more creatively, you can express what you would not normally be able to in words, and you can have a much broader audience than ever before. Aren't all these things positive? We're not losing social structures, we're broadening them in new ways. My generation is barely keeping up, my parents' generation is shaking their heads in dismay. So it was with the advent of radio, then television, and so on.

Politically, we're closer to true democracy than ever before. The lip service to "freedom" and "democracy" that America's leaders give is being debunked regularly. The above cannot exist without a well-informed populace, and if you control the information sources, you control the population. The US and North Korea alike are doing a good job at this. The difference is that in America there are so far no significant restrictions on information flow via the Internet. Anyone can write something, post it, and have it reach a wide audience. Duping the public is still possible, and happens regularly (reasons for invading Iraq, anyone?), but reality catches up with everyone much more quickly than in the past. It used to take 20 or more years for the facts to emerge. Today the scandals come out within months.

Of course this isn't yet true social democracy, we have a ways to go yet, but it's the first step. The mass consciousness that will manifest with the advent of the appropriate technologies will surprise the older generations. It already does. Why else are so many people caught with their pants down these days? Stephen Baxter's "Light of Other Days" is worth checking out for an example of how far this could go.

Finally, there is a new form of class divide, on top of the usual socioeconomic ones. That of technological haves and have nots. If you don't have a cell phone, you will soon be marginalized. If you live in the developed world, and do not have Internet access, you will soon be marginalized. If you think that all Internet users are beer swilling porn junkies, you're already marginalized (see Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the PiS party in Poland).

It's an exciting time. And my son, arriving soon, will never conceive of an unconnected world. In his lifetime we will become permanently wired. Today's social networking will be as archaic in 20 years as card-driven computers are today. I hope I remain "hip" enough to keep up...