Management tips for the Catholic church | Hacker News Reader

Management tips for the Catholic church

economist.com

41 points_nkl133 comments

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)

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

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.

> 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...)

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.

You certainly have little knowledge of Christians personally, or the ones you know are a bit weird.

On the other hand, if you read a little history, Crhistianity was prime for extincion much more than today in the first and second centuries (ever heard of Gnosticism? That ruled in those days, that was the 'real knowledge')...

In any case, do not let other people's prejudices conform your thoughts. It is bad for your health.

> Given these premises,

Your premises are faulty. But that's a lengthy and tedious discussion, probably not suitable for this post.

Instead, I invite you to visit your local parish with an open mind, celebrate Mass. I suggest you'll find not ignorance or fear but knowledge and joy.

Also: coffee and donuts afterwards.

Joy, I bet. Knowledge? That's rather subjective.

To nitpick: Why is Knowledge subjective? Knowledge just means familiarity with something. Now, whether it can be productive for you or not is subjective.

For Example: Say, you visit an ancient Mayan temple, learn about their customs and how they performed their rituals. You may or may not be able to take something out of it and enhance your personal life but certainly knowing in detail about it gave you a better position to make that judgement.

You are right for nitpicking. If the term knowledge was meant to be literal and knowledge is not bound to be measurable or precise, of course I can find knowledge with a local parish. Or a local bum. Or a local check-out girl. Or a shaman along the amazon river.

I was born into a strict catholic environment, so it's not solely prejudice when I judge Christianity.

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.

"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?

Hi. Just a pointer: if you think the child rape scandals are just a thing of today and that they will cause the Catholic Church to disappear, you need to re-evaluate your history. A mere skimming through "Brideshead Revisited" will show you that we Catholics are quite used to priests & bishops behaving awfully. Not thay I condone them. Just that you know.

On the other hand, what do you mean by "dying"?

Do not mistake your expectations/subjective views of the world for reality. They tend to differ. For everybody. Me too.

With child rape scandals I was merely referring to the wording "sex scandals", which seemed very euphemistic.

With the churches/religion dying I mean that atheists are the fastest growing 'camp' concerning religion. The catholic church might not die within the next 5 years, but I'm pretty sure will fade into non-existence. Every statement about the future is speculation of course.

I now understand your all caps above, point taken.

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.

Islam.

Muslims are often serious about their religion (encouraging converts) and they actually procreate.

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?

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.

I don't think we need a spiritual element in our life, rather a "knowledge", concept or other form of understanding of what our place in the world/universe is. But even with that I can't speak for everyone. What is nice about churches are rituals. My need for rituals is satisfied with raves, awesome atmosphere with a lot of friendly, tolerant people who are just enjoying themselves and the music with everyone.

"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.

People need a "common ground" of "spirituality". Even if you say "but not for me", I'm sure that (unless you're either an aspie or a psychopath :) ) you also get some sort of "mystical/spiritual understanding", probably from science and technology itself (like I do, and it took me years to understand that part of the "hard drug" that drives me to technology was actually a very "mystical" thing)... you can replace "mystical/spiritual" with "imagination/intuition of something more than self" if it's more atuned to the vocabulary of your mind. But this sort of thing satisfies a psychological need in a way that doesn't bring people together, while classical social religions, in their retarded and distorting way, actually bring people together. That's why I think there's an "untapped religious market" in the middle of these things :)

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.

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.

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

Relevant, although it takes a while to get there: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/03/05/honesty-and-the-human-b...

I don't know, spirituality would seem specifically require some sort of "spirit" or supernatural, though there are perhaps other definitions.

I'm not religious and don't spend much time pondering science, though I do at least try to stretch myself mentally in various ways but solving a puzzle of some kind seems like a far cry from religion.

I like the more general definitions like: social scientists have defined spirituality as the search for "the sacred," where "the sacred" is broadly defined as that which is set apart from the ordinary and worthy of veneration. For myself,I like to think in terms of the known (intuitive known vs theoretical rational known vs empirical rational known) vs. the unknown (known unknown vs unknown unknown) and so on, rather than natural vs supernatural, since everything can be natural if you have a less contrived definition of nature.

I consider a tough scientific or technical or technical problem enlightening because it shows you the limits of your mind and how much you don't know or don't understand - this makes you more humble and teaches you to accept that you will always be surrounded by deep "mysteries" that you will never have the resources to comprehend. And otoh, when you finally solve a hard and deep problem that brought you to the limits of your mind, you realized that even the limits were an illusion and that your mind could maybe even comprehend the entire universe. For me it's easy and natural to find spirituality in science and technology, but I understand that people like me are basically "anomalies" and I understand other people's need for the more "magical" type of spirituality and for having it as a social thing (and I know there are other types of "anomalies" as well, not in bad sense - the one who can just take science and understanding "as is" with no need for spirituality). This is why I think there is huge unsatisfied market for all sorts of very different "spiritual products"!

If they did they could just stay in churches. If people are moving away from churches, maybe there is no such need.

They're dying in Europe. Not much anywhere else, especially in places like Africa or Asia. Anyway, the article states it, did you read it?

Christianity is also dying in New Zealand and Australia -- and I say that as a New Zealand christian.

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

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

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