HE is an old man taking over as the leader of a
spectacularly dysfunctional organisation. Its upper echelons are riven
with ambitious factions. The head of its bank has recently been fired. It can't get priests. Police forces around the world are seeking criminals it has sheltered.
Its churches are emptying. Its most enthusiastic cheerleaders are in denial about the reasons why a majority of its faithful members simply ignore its moral teachings. Good luck with that, Pope Francis.
While we waited for the white smoke to billow at the Vatican, a smart alec quipped that what was needed was "Jesus with a masters in business administration". What we have got, we do not really know yet. The choice was between a conservative and an ultra-conservative. Jorge Mario Bergoglio has been described as a moderate conservative.
It is odd that those who would hear no ill spoken about his predecessor, are now enthusing about apparently opposite values in this new man.
Benedict preached unquestioning obedience to authority, wore hand-stitched shoes in the finest crimson leather and has taken four ladies into his retirement home to do his housework.
Francis rails against global inequality, takes the bus and cooks for himself. But then again the same sycophantic courtiers insist there is nothing wrong with the Catholic Church but assure us the new Pope will be well able to deal with its problems.
What we can take from their smugness is, unfortunately, that they do not expect their little world to be shaken any time soon.
We do not know yet what Pope Francis will do about the scandal of clerical child sexual abuse. This was the scandal to which Pope John Paul II was so oblivious that he rewarded some of the worst criminals involved in it with high office and immunity from prosecution within the Vatican.
Pope Benedict belatedly recognised the harm that abuse and its concealment had caused, but still failed to explore its causes or to deal decisively with it.
That is why those who have campaigned tirelessly for the protection of children, including those who know from their own painful experience the devastation such abuse can cause, will demand of this new Pope that he makes his church, from the top to the bottom, accountable.
The new Pope is
said to be conservative on matters of church doctrine, but radical on
social justice. This is an equation which does not make sense. Women
make up the majority of the world's poor, and one of the fundamental
causes is their inability to control their own fertility. They need to
be able to get divorced. Pope Francis is opposed to all of these.
Women
also need churches and governments alike to radically engage with
getting rid of the scourge of gender-based violence. This will not
happen within a church which is so far from respecting women as equal to
men that it refuses to allow women to be priests, let alone bishops or,
God forbid, the Pope. It has so far refused even to allow these matters
to be discussed.
The distorted attitude to sexuality
remains, too. Cardinal Bergoglio is said to have held the line against
liberals and is unlikely, therefore to reconsider the enforcement of
clerical celibacy. Gay men and women whose Catholic faith matters to
them will have been bitterly disappointed to read that the new Pope
regards gay marriage as "an attempt to destroy God's plan".
We
must welcome the fact that Pope Francis comes from Latin America, and
that he has, as a cardinal, been eloquent in denouncing the misery
caused by the "unjust distribution of good" in the world.
Trocaire,
so often embarrassed by the pomp and wealth and social obtuseness of
the hierarchy, will be relieved, not least by the new Pope's acceptance
that condoms are useful in preventing the epidemic spread of HIV.
He has, in his past, called for an end to limitations on "the possibilities of a fuller life for so many of our brothers".
It
is sad that, despite his Christlike demonstration of respect for the
children of single mothers, he has not added: "and our sisters".