Bottom Up Child
Even the Pope of the Catholic Church can retired. The Catholic church of today is very hierarchical: It is the Pope on top, Bishops below him and priest behind Bishops and laity below priests. For all the talk of reform, dialog and open discussion the church remains hierarchical. There are some benefits to a hierarchical system, eliminating bureaucrats making decisions but there is a more pitiful since the Church is supposed to be the people of God and the people are powerless. Top down organizations, as the Church has become over the years, do not listen to the people at the bottom.
My journey in the Catholic Faith was a quick trip up part of the ladder and a slow drop off the ladder. After high school I joined the Society of Jesus for a fourteen year commitment to be a priest. When I left the seminary I started to slide down the slide quickly.
When I was at the bottom run of the Society of Jesus, Jesuits religious orders, I was isolated in a monastic center in the country for four years. We lived in our own world of studies, play, conversation and meals. I had just started my second year as a ‘novice’ when my one month experiment came up. In teams of two we were assigned as orderlies in a big city hospital in a major city. The month, October 1962, was intense with visiting the sick, caring for the dying, rushing people around the hospital, praying with families and working with a priest who was on the vanguard of the new liturgical movement taking place. It was the month of the Cuban missile crisis.
After a month of intense living we were brought back to the protected life of the rural seminary. Right before we left for the hospital our class had started studying Greek. I had trouble with languages and already was tired of the Latin I had studied for four years of high school and four years in the seminary. I just could not get myself around Greek. I went to see our novice master and told of him my dilemma. He was very understanding and told me that he could seek permission for me not to take Greek but that would mean I could not take the fourth vow of the religious order, fidelity to Pope, and thus never be one of the specially professed Jesuits or a Superior.. I said okay and the next three years, when everyone went to study Greek I got to take other courses and do other things. It was then I discover my love of history and took history when others had to take Greek. Since I did not stay the 14 year old course to be a Jesuit priest it really did not matter.
The Pope of Rome in the old days of the Catholic Church was elected by the people. Now the Pope is elected by select Bishops that are called Cardinals and have sworn an official special obedience to the Pope and whatever he says. The Cardinals are appointed by the Pope and thus reflect his views. The cycle of top down goes on and on. Jesus grew up at the bottom and died at the bottom. I like the bottom best since on the bottom you have nowhere to go but up.
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