

Management tips for the Catholic church - tebuevd
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21573101-management-tips-catholic-church-pope-ceo

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joelmichael
At the time Richard Williamson had his excommunication removed, the Vatican
did not know he was a Holocaust denier. His ordination was never approved by
the Vatican in the first place, rather he was ordained in the heretical
organization SSPX, which was why he was excommunicated. The reason Benedict
removed these excommunications was to restore peace with the ultra-
traditionalists who reject the Second Vatican Council, in much the same way
Catholics have been working to restore peace with other Christians who do not
accept the Catholic orthodoxy. Such ecumenism is usually viewed as progress,
but anti-Catholic critics have continually tried to present this as if
Benedict condones Holocaust denial, which is disingenuous, as he has condemned
those views and suspended Williamson's episcopal authority until he recants.

The decision not to meet with the singing priest was not entirely "bad
business" because by condoning clergy who perform pop-star renditions of the
Mass you isolate the many more conventional Catholics who prefer some
solemnity in their liturgy, and find such shows disrespectful to a sacred
institution. There have been many such abuses since the Novus Ordo Mass began
and Benedict had been trying to tighten up on them.

Although the author seems to be suggesting that the Vatican start a bank for
the sake of humor, there actually is a Vatican Bank, the Institute for Works
of Religion. (Edit: I misread)

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DavidSJ
He was suggesting the Vatican get out of the bank business, not enter it.

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qwertzlcoatl
Religion in general and Christianity in particular, thrives and flourishes on
the soil of human fears, whether [originally] of unexplainable natural
phenomena, of ignorance or of gullibility. Given these premises, like secular
empires of old, the Roman Catholic Church, already in the "winter" of its
existence, is fated to die.

A small percentage of educated Catholics (through birth) care about the
medieval doctrines of old men in the Vatican, and very few live by them.

The media frenzy about the forthcoming elections of a new CEO give the wrong
impression that all this is a truly important occasion.

~~~
nnq
> thrives and flourishes on the soil of human fears

...it doesn't have to be this way! Educated, healthy and secure individuals
also need a form of "socialized spirituality", but there is no good product on
the market for them. If traditional religions like Catholicism would start
marketing themselves to the "educated, healthy and secure", I believe they
could even have some success. Granted, their "product" is not for this market,
but it might be more flexible than they think. Historically speaking,
Christianity has been quite a flexible "religious product", they even had
"soldier monks that killed for God" in the time of the crusades, and although
this backfired a bit (ok, more than a bit...), it showed that the Christian
faith is at its core very flexible and adaptable. (disclaimer: I'm not
promoting any personal view here, I'm personally more in the market for "far
eastern spiritual goods" than flavors of Christianity...)

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Udo
I think the fundamental misunderstanding here is not about replacing fear and
suppression as a motivation for religion, but whether a belief in the
supernatural (and a service structure that caters to it) is necessary in the
first place.

From my early childhood on, it's one of these things that made me doubt if I'm
even part of the same species as most people. I remember a vivid discussion
with the local priest about why I stopped coming to bible class (I had only
been there once or twice because my parents thought I was missing out on
something). The guy said the problem was not that I was rejecting his faith in
_particular_ , what made him think I was really sick and disturbed was the
fact that I didn't see why anyone would have a religion at all.

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bdunbar
The Roman church has been around for two thousand years.

The lifespan of your average publicly traded company is what .. a decade?

Advising the Vatican to change everything based on the listed problems is like
telling Bezos he needs to overhaul Amazon based on shenanigans that happened
yesterday.

This might be the right thing to do. Or it might not be. Mr. Bezos would be
advised to study the matter for a few days before taking action.

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phryk
"auguring well for the future" Are you kidding me? Religion at large,
especially the churches are dying… Also with "sex scandals" they mean [child]
RAPE scandals, right?

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nnq
The churches are _dying very slowly_ and they are leaving behind a _huge void_
that will have to filled somehow (hint: science or science education is not
the thing to fill it with... maybe an evolved "science based philosophy" could
but I don't know). And it's very interesting to see what kind of "spiritual
products" will fill this market void ...hopefully _less toxic ones._

~~~
jiggy2011
does it need to be "spiritual" based, or is the community aspect that is
important? In other words do you think there is some amount of the population
who fundamentally require spiritual belief of some kind in order to be happy?

~~~
nnq
I actually believe we _all_ need some kind of "spiritual" element if our life,
it's a basic psychological necessity. Some of us can get this in a "disguised"
form from pondering deep scientific questions or working on complicated
problems that actually bring the mind to its limits and provide it with some
"glimpse of the beyond". _But I do believe that a large percent of the
populations also needs some form of "socialized spirituality", and this is
what traditional religions offer._

~~~
andyjohnson0
_"But I do believe that a large percent of the populations also needs some
form of "socialized spirituality", and this is what traditional religions
offer."_

I think you're right, and that for most people (but not me), science and
rationality doesn't offer this.

The important question is, _why_ do people need this? Fear of death? Need to
belong to a tribe? Whats important: "social" or "spiritual"?

Until we we know this there won't be successful "science based philosophy" (as
nnq termed it) that avoids the pathological aspects of religion.

~~~
jiggy2011
Since scientific understanding (including the understanding of understanding)
changes relatively frequently (at least compared to religion) I strongly
suspect that any "science based philosophy" will eventually devolve into a
cult.

~~~
nnq
If you base it on _scientific facts_ , yes. But actually _science_ is not
about _facts_ but about _a method of understanding_ that produces "factual
knowledge". Yeah, as you say, even the understanding of understanding evolves,
but we just need to learn to "design things that evolve"... and I think it's
orders of magnitudes easier to do this "in the world of pure memes" with
something like a philosophy, than in the physical world with something like a
self-replicating mutating robot. Yeah, just as with such a robot you'd have to
give up things like "control over it", with such a philosophy-religion you may
have to give up things like "moral values", but that's ok imho, since you can
have those separately... The only thing that makes a "cult" "bad" is lack of
freedom and flexibility, and this is "by design" for most cults.

~~~
jiggy2011
This sounds a lot like what we currently call "philosophy"

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leephillips
There is a surprising amount of euphemistic handwringing in the comments here.
I can't do better than Sam Harris:

"It is no exaggeration to say that for decades (if not centuries) the Vatican
has met the formal definition of a criminal organization, devoted not to
gambling, prostitution, drugs, or any other venial sin, but to the sexual
enslavement of children."

The essay from which this is extracted is worth reading:
<http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/brin>

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pfortuny
Certainly the economist needs funny and awesome headings for their articles.
Man.

