Thursday, 1 May 2025

The next Pope, and the cycle of corruption in the Roman Catholic Church

There is a cycle of corruption: 

A corrupt leader will corrupt an institution. 

And a corrupt institution will choose a corrupt leader. 

So, whatever the original source of corruption, it tends to be self-perpetuating - indeed, self-amplifying.


But if the leader is being chosen from outside an institution; then a good leader might be put in charge of a corrupt institution. And might be able to make that institution less corrupt - more-good. 

 

Pope Francis was a corrupt leader, who corrupted the Roman Catholic Church; and Francis was elected because the Roman Catholic Church was corrupt. 

In the normal course of events for human institutions; the next Pope chosen by the RCC will be corrupt - and more-corrupt than the previous one. 

That is what has happened in other human institutions, organizations, corporations, nations... especially over the past fifty years or so - increased corruption leading to the choice of more-corrupt leaders who then accelerate the corruption.   


The only reasonable grounds for optimism are if the next leader is chosen from outside of the circle and web of corruption; only then might he be a good leader.  

The Roman Catholic Church, like many other churches, has a strong tendency to assert that its leaders are chosen by God. 

Well, it all depends on whether you really believe that God works that way. Such assertions are easy to say, but do not seem to affect people's behaviour...

Probably because such fatalism is inconsistent with the reality of the human condition, and human free agency. 

"God wills it" is (in practice) used far more often as an excuse, than it is a true life-motivator. 


Furthermore, there is the fact that people understand the world through their assumptions

And these assumptions often deny the possibility of corrupt leadership, or the corruption of a specific leader. For some Catholics (and Orthodox, Anglicans, Protestants, Mormons) it is axiomatic that their leader was chosen by God and is good. 

For such persons it is facile, indeed inevitable, that all possible signs of corruption from their leader will instead be regarded as having other causes, or even be seen as evidence of goodness. 


So the question - for those of us who are not Roman Catholic, and do not share the above assumptions, but who hope for a strong and good Catholic church: 

Will the RCC continue the cycle of corruption, as is most probable?

Or could the improbable, the unlikely, happen: will the church break out from the cycle? 


And, if so; who are the human agents through-which God may work in order to make it happen?  


4 comments:

Francis Berger said...

"In the normal course of events for human institutions; the next Pope chosen by the RCC will be corrupt - and more-corrupt than the previous one."

I'm particularly wary of an "undetectably corrupt" pope who is promoted and largely accepted as uncorrupted. Many Catholics are starving for such an individual. Such hunger can induce all sorts of hallucinations, wishful thinking, and delusions. One need look no further than the alt-right defense of certain token "conservative" politicians to draw some sort of parallel.

Whatever the case, this whole pope business is not where anyone's religious attention should be focused. Far too external in scope.

Bruce Charlton said...

@Frank - Well it takes all sorts, and I think there are plenty of Christians around the world who would benefit from a good and strong RCC.

But I completely agree at the almost infinite capacity for self-deception in face of (what are, to outsiders) very obvious bad leaders. It's down to assumptions, typically unconscious and unexamined - as usual.

Maolsheachlann said...

The received wisdom among Catholics, especially after Pope Francis, seems to be that the Pope is NOT directly chosen by God. Pope Benedict himself denied that he was.

https://jimmyakin.com/2018/03/does-god-pick-the-pope.html

Bruce Charlton said...

@M - My impression is that belief in a divinely selected Pope is commoner in some places than others - for instance, in the British Isles (i.e. Irish dominated Roman Catholicism) where orthodoxy has been strikingly ultramontaine, at least until recently.