THE POPE HAS JUST VISITED THE U.K. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF HIM AND DO YOU THINK THE CRITICISM AGAINST HIM IS JUSTIFIED?

Question. Serge, I am interested in what you think about the Pope. I confess that I was surprisingly touched by him when he visited England on his tour. Do you think he is a ‘good man’ or do you think all the criticism against him is justified?

Serge.  I am glad you were touched. I was too.  I felt he had a lot of heart and warmth and gave us all a great gift, even if we were not Catholics. I think there are two separate issues here: the Pope as a human being and the organisation  over which he presides. I am sure that,  as a human being, he holds great spiritual power. One does not get to be Pope without it. Certainly, on the news,  I saw the anti-Pope brigade led by that  angry, arch God hater, Richard Dawkins, who described him as ‘A leering old villain in a frock, who spent decades conspiring behind closed doors for the position he now holds’, and observed the tight-lipped, mean-hearted expression on Dawkins’ face, it said more about him than about the Pope!

(What we human beings don’t yet seem to have mastered, is the art of pointing out anomalies or faults without a lot of  self-righteous bile going into our accusations! Why is it  that so often we  have to be nasty and aggressive when we draw attention to things that we believe are wrong, and in so doing, personify the very anomalies we complain about!)

But to answer your question, my answer is no; I do not think  all the criticism against the Pope as a man is justified. That said,  there is an enormous lot wrong with the institution and  with the structures of the Catholic church, over  which he presides – and here I distinguish between these structures and the essence of Catholic spirituality which is beautiful and pure, and  which has helped and touched millions of people all over the world.  There is a little story that I think is relevant here. A man was walking down the street full of joy. The devil was sitting on a bench and saw him and went up to him and said’ My friend, you look so happy. What has happened to make you like that? ‘Ah,’ beamed the man, ‘I feel so great as I have just discovered a wonderful truth.’ At this the devil pricked up his ears and drawing closer to the man, put an arm around his shoulders,  and said, ‘I am so pleased. Do let me help you organise it!’

And by devil, I refer, of course, to man’s wounded ego! As an ‘organization’, then,  the Catholic church is not dissimilar to  other powerful corporations and is facing  not dissimilar challenges. As the Pope is its head honcho,  as with the leaders of BP and Goldman Sachs, who have also recently and justifiably,  had to take a lot of flak, he feels honour bound to ‘defend  his baby’! Where his limitations  have  surfaced is that this has involved a lot of cover ups, especially of the many abuse scandals that have occurred.  I think the problem with the Pope is that while he is a good man, he is also an old man; he is steeped in the past, reared in a tradition of patriarchy and celibacy and seems afraid of letting it all go.  He cannot look to the future,  and, so it seems, realise, as so many heads of organisations are  now doing, that if their organisations are  to survive,  they need to make many  radical changes and pretty quickly! That’s part of the problem of strong traditions. Yes, because they have existed for eons, they give us strength. However,  their downside is that they can weigh us down and so prevent us moving forward into the future (see my article ‘Why we need spirituality and not religion in the world’ on my website www.sergebb.com).

 So what is ‘wrong’ with the institution of the Catholic church? A lot. Firstly, it preaches the doctrine of ‘Original Sin’, namely that we are born in damnation, which is a terrible burden to hold. Father Mathew Fox,  who, borrowing from the tradition of Creation Spirituality, suggested we think rather in terms of ‘Original Blessing’, was  condemned to silence by the church for being ‘out of line!’ Thus, while it will not admit it openly, a lot of Catholicism is pretty anti joy!  Apollonius is OK., Dionysius is equated with the devil, leading to a state whereby one is encouraged to study about God, rather than directly know  and celebrate the divine. In addition, homosexuality is seen as evil, yet  only men are allowed to be priests (women aren’t ‘good enough ‘ to make the grade!), and, in addition, are required to be celibate, yet so far as I know, are given no processes by which to transmute their sexual energies other than  through prayer. This leads to strong repression and, for many, great unhappiness, leading inevitably to a climate conducive to sexual abuse . (If our sexuality is abused, then that abuse gets ‘acted out’!) And then, of course, there is the horrific element whereby Birth Control is banned, thus leading to a condition in which too many children are born for the planet’s resources to be able to handle.

Basically, in common with BP and Goldman Sachs and many other  large corporations,  the Catholic church is guilty of the ‘sin’ - and I will use that  word since it is one it likes to use - of denying what Jung called its Shadow, and instead projecting its own dark side out onto others. Thus the church is split between light and dark. And that’s where  many of its problem lie.  Only now is it being willing to recognise the mote in its  own eye, and, given the secrete ness of his organisation, I think the Pope is to be congratulated for at last starting, if tentatively, to own up to its abusive nature and the fact that the church had focussed more on protecting its rogue priests than caring for their victims.

Today, much new  spiritual light is flooding into our planet and is shining directly into all our ‘darknesses’ - into everything that is hidden and unjust -  and the result is that more and more of what we have tried to ‘cover up’, whether directly or indirectly, is coming out into the open. We see this happening  as much in our own personal lives as in the lives of  our organisations and institutes and nations.  And this is very healthy and to be celebrated, for only when we can see a blockage or an anomaly for what it is, can we find a way of dealing with it.  Just as many of the wrong doings of the banking system have been exposed, and, we hope, will lead to fairer  financial practices in the future, so I hope and pray the same thing will happen with the Catholic church, as it is a huge force for good in the world. If  Catholic Christianity can  once more find it true heart  and soul – its true Christhood, as it starts liberating itself from the  worst restrictions of  the ‘Churchianity’  into which it been descending - then the  true message of Jesus will be liberated once more  to burn brightly on our planet. And our planet needs this badly.  The Catholic church has a lot of work to do on itself over the next few years .