Are the churches fit for purpose today?

This week’s Independent New & Media/Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

The king is dead, long live the king. In this instance we can’t quite say the pope is dead, long live the pope. Pope Emeritus Benedict resigned in 2013. 

He was no longer pope at his death. I believe this is the first time in the history of the church that a pope presided over the funeral Mass of another pope.

Who was Pope Benedict, aka Jospeh Ratzinger? What sort of a man was he? I suppose only his close friends could answer that question. 

The world agrees that he was a fine academic, a top class thinker. I know someone who casually met him one day in Rome, they spent ten minutes talking and my friend found him most personable and friendly, indeed Ratzinger that same day told a work colleague he had met an impressive Irish man.

While in his job as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he was known by some as a Rottweiler, in other words he had the touch of being a tough disciplinarian, who came down heavily on any sort of what some might call questionable theological writing. 

It was he who gave the final say on the current missal we use in Ireland at Mass. In my opinion it has not in any way helped us pray any better and it has been a colossal waste of money. It’s interesting that Germany never revised their missal.

Has the German pope done more to unite or divide the Catholic Church? Did Ratzinger simply carry on the baton that was given him by John Paul II?

I heard a priest of the Dublin archdiocese say that  he feels that the Catholic Church is heading for schism and only last week a fellow Dominican expressed his opinion that the church is currently in free fall. Strong words.

When I read some of the commentary on Pope Emeritus Benedict after his death I was bemused. The usual suspects said what was expected of them. 

But isn’t that always the way it is when a world or well-known figure dies? When Leonid Brezhnev died the Communist world wrote in great praise of him, just as the western world eulogised on JFK when he was shot dead in Dallas.

The world is a strange place. Life is a mystery and death is weird. But right now across Europe no one could say that Christian churches are in a healthy place and certainly from my long association with the Catholic Church I have no difficulty in saying matters are grim.

Is the institutional church, governed by a hierarchical system, fit for purpose today? Why are so many good and honest people, young and old, not paying any heed to the church? I keep getting the impression that priesthood is broken. 

Yes, there are small cliques that hold together but is there today any genuine real friendship or honesty among priests? I think it is all breaking down and there is deep distrust among priests, fear too. What about kindness?

I hope the words of poet and philosopher John O’Donoghue can take hold for all of us: ‘Awaken your spirit to adventure;/ Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;/ Soon you will be home in a new rhythm/ For your soul senses the world that awaits you.’