The Pope and Vatican Scandal

The Vatican, said my wise wife, is the model for all the (predatory) corporations that are despoiling our world. Her comment was prompted by the current brewing scandal of a possible reason for the Pope resigning so suddenly. According to a report in La Repubblica, a committee of Vatican octogenarian insiders revealed to Benedict XVI a faction within the Vatican “united by sexual orientation” that had been subject to “external influence” of a “worldly nature.” This translates as: a gay faction inside the Vatican, probably being blackmailed. Another Vatican source explained: “Everything revolves around the non-observance of the sixth and seventh commandments,” i.e. adultery and thievery.

What do predatory corporations and the Church, qua institution, have in common? Ironically, it's amorality; the willingness to do almost anything, for power, or for corporations, profit.

When did the Roman Catholic Church first become an institution more powerful than the state? Back at the cusp of the Fifth Century (390), when Bishop Ambrose of Milan excommunicated Emperor Theodosius the Great, who underwent months of penance, before, so goes the story, climbing the cathedral steps on his knees. His surrender entailed outlawing all worship of pagan gods, acknowledging the Church's monopoly on religious power.

By the end of the next generation, the Roman Church, in effect, took over from the failing Roman Empire . The power of non-Catholic Christian Visigoths and Ostrogoths like Odoacer and Theoderic, took longer to overthrow: Franks and other Catholic German tribes, replaced them with the support of the Roman church.

Do not think of the Roman church back then as a religious institution: it was the literate brains for the illiterate brawn of their Germanic allies. Priests, Bishops--and Popes--had mistresses and families. Some probably had boyfriends. They did not practice poverty, either, but since they had no military power, safety depended upon controlling the succeeding kings, in order to protect their wealth in turbulent times.

There was considerable overlap between the Senatorial class and the leadership of the church. Sidonius, one of the best-known Senators, known for his elegant writing style, became a Bishop, later sainted, in what is now Provence. He defended his diocese from the Arian Christian Goths, was imprisoned, but later was freed to (supposedly) hear Mary Magdalen's confession (according to the tablet in his crypt, although the Magdalen lived there 300 years earlier).

It's true that what classical learning and literacy survived, as well as any remnant of science and philosophy, was due to the Church. But the moral flexibility of the church was one of the reasons for the failure of the western empire: it transferred its secular support to insure its spiritual monopoly. It's likely that the Church supported the "fall of Rome," when Senators voted to overthrow the boy Emperor, Romulus Augustulus for the Ostrogothic King Odoacer, ceding him the land he coveted in Italy; they refused to tax themselves to pay him off.