The Roman Disease - Prophets or Poppets?

How can it be that one man, a pope, can single-handedly colour the Church so ? How is it that the Church, in a single generation, can be made in the image of one man? The answer is clear. There is too much power held centrally in Rome. Wielding this power, a pope who’s around long enough can change the temperament of national and regional hierarchies by appointing bishops whose ideas conform to his own. These bishops in turn will seek out like-minded clerics for support and later recommend them for preferment in their turn.

What kind of men do we end up with, under this system? Do we find ourselves led by fearless prophets who will speak their truth even when it conflicts with their own interests? Occasionally we do, but these bishops don’t rise any further up the Roman greasy pole. Any bishop who speaks contrary to the prevailing Roman view, can say goodbye to any further promotion. Most of our bishops are safe, reliable products of a Rome-based educational system where strict adherence to curial orthodoxy is the only way to survive. We end up with papal poppets rather than Old Testament-style prophets.

I’m not saying that these are bad men. They are good men who have been corrupted by a system of patronage that rewards subservience and compliance, and encourages careerism. How many bishops worldwide have not been educated in Roman colleges? How many archbishops are there who have not spent time training or working in Rome? How many cardinals of voting age have not come through the Roman mill? The days when a monk like Basil Hume, with no Roman provenance, could be appointed an archbishop and given a red hat are long gone.

One of the demands of the 1,000 priests meeting in Dublin last week, was that bishops be elected. If bishops were chosen by the diocesan church, we would end up with a wider spectrum of views and backgrounds than we have at present. The Church as a whole would be richer for having leaders who didn’t conform to a single model of Church, whose understanding priesthood and ministry was multi-coloured rather than monochrome, and who were a reflection in some way of the people of their diocese rather than the curia or the pope.  

The notion that the local Church should appoint local bishops follows an ancient tradition. The cuckoo in the nest is the idea that the world’s bishops are chosen in Rome. Never, in the history of the Church, has so much power rested in the hands of a few men in Rome as it does today. If the people of the Church were once again allowed to choose their bishops, we’d find ourselves with many more prophets than we currently have. Rome, of course, prefers poppets.