The latest issue of the Catholic weekly, The Tablet, of London, England, notes in its lead editorial, "", that "an institution with 1.2 billion members all over the globe cannot be run by what is essentially an unreformed Renaissance monarchy and it's elderly cosseted courtiers."

Nothing much nuanced here. But The Tablet is right and there are many in church leadership who know it; the accoutrements of court, the aristocratic honorifics, the arcane entitlements, the rarefied gestures, all these speak to centuries of noble accretions, the historical reconfiguring of the ministry of the Fisherman into a temporal fiefdom, a holy autocracy, some distance from the rustic simplicity of Simon Peter.

And if the papacy is to purge itself of those inessentials that speak to its tradition-heavy past, and as a consequence reinvigorate its ministry for the future, then the conversations, strategizing, and lobbying that unfolds in the coming days as all the able cardinal electors gather in Rome for their pre-conclave General Congregations (plenary sessions that are structured to provide all the cardinals -- those with the right to vote and those 80and above who can no longer vote -- with the opportunity to speak their mind) should identify areas of reform that include more than personnel. Such thinking might involve a serious review of the perduring relevance and efficacy of a model and style of church governance in an era when the trappings of an absolutist monarchy have diminishing appeal for all, save Hollywood producers, ecclesiastical fantasists, gossip columnists, and those with a taste for the halberd, the cappa magna, and an ornate baldacchino.

Now to be practical, the very likelihood of a radical remaking of the Vatican with its storied history, invaluable works of antiquity and artistic treasure, divesting itself of its earthly majesty is as remote a possibility as electing a woman pope. Novelists like may dream of such a day, and a few church reformers and mystics in the past may have perished for thinking and writing of it, but it is not outside the realm of possibility to continue the quiet simplification of protocol and privilege begun by Pope John XXIII and continued under all his successors save Benedict, who rather liked the old ways.

Beauty has a role to play in the spiritual life; aesthetics matters. The Vatican is a locus of civilization, preserver of a patrimony greater than one European epoch. And that is why it's time to cleanse an "unreformed Renaissance monarchy" precisely in order to strengthen its gift to the world.

Bio:

Dr. Michael W. Higgins is CTV's Papal commentator. He is also:

  • Vice President for Mission & Catholic Identity, Sacred Heart University
  • Chief Consultant, for 鈥淪ir Peter Ustinov鈥檚 Inside the Vatican鈥� 6-part series
  • Author of Bestsellers: Power and Peril: the Catholic Church at the Crossroads , (HarperCollins, 2002) and Stalking the Holy: In Pursuit of Saint-Making (Anansi, 2006)
  • Author of Award-winners: Heretic Blood: the Spiritual Geography of Thomas Merton (Stoddart, 1998) and Suffer the Children Unto Me: An Open Inquiry into the Clerical sex Abuse Scandal (Novalis, 2010)
  • Past President of St. Jerome鈥檚 in Waterloo & St. Thomas In Fredericton NB