So long, farewell...

I had decided I wasn’t gonna go there… the Pope resigning … and all that goes along with it.

A persons faith and religious upbringing are tender things and no one should be made to feel bad about what they believe, don’t believe or how it gets expressed and acted out in this world.

You can’t live where I do – in a town named for a Catholic Saint, for Pete’s sake - and work in the healthcare system I work in - and NOT know hundreds of faithful Catholics; not one of whom believe in the totality of either the church’s teachings or the infallibility of the Pope.

We’re all perfectly willing to accept that every church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.

I was willing to take the Pope at his word that age and infirmity had taken a toll and the responsibility of his office had finally exceeded his physical ability to carry out his earthly ministry.

I think we can all respect that.
Anyone who has even remotely followed religious events over the years could see his visible decline.

However, it was the ‘throwaway’ phrase of a representative of Rome that got me thinking about the backstory - - coupled with the sudden resignations of the Archbishop of LA (Roger Mahony) and, on the other side of the pond,  the resignation of the highest ranking Roman Catholic in the UK (Cardinal Keith O’Brien) - - that reminded me anew that transparency is NOT, nor has it ever been, one of the churches strong suits.

During a televised story about His Eminence retiring to a life of seclusion and prayer, "removed from the world" in a Vatican monastery, a spokesman mentioned that, because he would be the first living ‘retired’ Pope in nearly 700 years, his correspondence and all church documentation relating to him, his ministry and his ‘reign’, would NOT be placed in the Church Archives as is the usual tradition.
Nope, it’s all going with him into the monastery and will not be available to anyone until after his death.

Really?
How convenient.

A Pope presiding over some of the worst sex abuse scandals in its history, a pope accused of condoning, through silence and the systematic protection of offending clergy, the abuse of thousands of children worldwide gets to take ALL his paperwork into seclusion with him - - just as investigators from several countries are closing in on him and his minions?

The church has always been good at 'redefining' reality – but turning witness protection into retirement may be its best trick yet!