Ratzinger & Berlusconi

Historical forces work in mysterious ways their wonders to perform. In the very same week and in the very same city where Cardinal Ratzinger caught the brass ring and ascended to supreme leader of the Catholic Church, horrifying Catholics who had hoped for a kinder, gentler figure, an equally reactionary figure who had risen to head the Italian government after building a media empire and fortune, Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi, was forced to resign and prepare to submit to a new election.

One was elected by a secret conclave of bishops. The other will have to go before a public electorate and hope that his ability to project his image into every living room via television, radio and newspapers will keep him in power.

Of course, if only Italian bishops had been voting for a new pope, the result might well have been different. The truth is that Catholicism has greatly weakened in the very country that is its historical seat, and church officials there know they have to make compromises or their ranks will shrink even faster. Even the crowds that hung out in Vatican Square waiting for the white smoke were very split over the choice of Ratzinger, and reports abounded that some were downright indignant.

Not hard to figure out why, since he not only has a past in the German Hitler Youth but was Pope John Paul’s closest collaborator in rejecting any moderation of the church’s stand on divorce, contraception, abortion, clerical celibacy, women in the priesthood and lesbian and gay rights.

Most Catholics in the United States, it turns out, don’t practice what their church preaches on most of these issues, even though they supposedly risk damnation and an eternity boiling in hell. (Many priests don’t practice it either, as the widespread child abuse scandal has shown.)

And yet, Ratzinger is in for life, however long that may be. And reactionaries of all stripes are quite happy about that.

And Berlusconi may be out, the casualty of tagging along with Bush on Iraq, as well as carrying out an austerity offensive against Italian workers that is particularly hard to swallow coming from a multi-billionaire.

The monopolized media so epitomized by Berlusconi was also extremely instrumental in numbing any critical thoughts about the church as John Paul lay dying and the struggle over his
successor had already begun. It was, in fact, an ideological onslaught of required reverence like few before it, a paean to mysticism delivered by the most scientifically advanced communications media.

The church is so top down that it can withstand new winds of change for a long time. It’s harder in a capitalist democracy, which is why the ruling class will often abandon that political form when it becomes an impediment to their rule and opt for something more in keeping with their class dictatorship over the people. But that has its risks, too, as both Hitler and Mussolini found out.

What’s important, however, is that the masses of people have moved forward. Women are not content with being little more than vessels to produce heirs for their husbands. They want a life. People who decide to move on to another partner before “death do us part” do not feel ashamed. Emotional growth and change are part of life.

Loving someone of the same sex is not considered a sin any more by many of those whose churches preach otherwise.

But they are deeply distressed by a war for conquest and profit, even when it has the blessings of politicians, press and pulpit.

The popes and press magnates who try to hold back this growth of consciousness have vast resources at their disposal, but it is they who are becoming isolated and disregarded.