The Meeting between Pope Leo the Great and Attila 
Fresco by Raffaello Sanzio  - 1514

Catholics are told to accept a number of what the Vatican calls "mysteries" (that Christ allegedly changed water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana, for example.) These are often legends in Catholic history thought to need our pondering, or dogmatic concepts which either cannot be logically explained or are so absurd that the hierarchy's only defense is to tell the faithful that the inadequate lay brain could not possibly comprehend them.

A legitimate rosary, should include the announcement of each of the so-called "mysteries" from one of the several categories- Glorious, Sorrowful, Joyful or the recently (2002) added "Luminous--" before each decade of beads is prayed over.

So let's borrow the concept of "mysteries" in the church and use it for a thoughtful examination of why Catholics continue to endure in a church so clearly -- and now so publicly-- troubled.

Part of the problem may rest in the willingness of Catholic laypersons to submit to a code of beliefs that forces them to abandon logic and reason at several points along the way. I am not talking about religious mythology. Many faiths have myths, with magical imagery and "gods" or "goddesses" capable of superhuman tasks, metamorphoses and leaders who are in direct communication with god (often on a "nearer my god to thee" hilltop.) Other sects also may have rituals, statuary and their own version of what some Catholics call "smells and bells." They can build ornate houses of worship, enforce codes demanding public penance, dietary laws, and often a need to discourage familiarity or, worse, intimacy with "outsiders."

What they do not have, however, is the illogical myth of the unchallengeable infallibility of their top human leader. The mysterious human/infallibility oxymoron coupled with the absence of any mechanism for questioning papal statements, let alone laws, and, finally the absence of papal "term limits" (however incapable a pope may become) constitute a uniquely Catholic nightmare.

For Catholic laity, the greatest "mystery" may be its own total powerlessness-- the handicap of having no voice in choosing the priests who will minister to them, no voice regarding clergy  tenure, promotion or termination. "Parish councils" in the Catholic context are mainly fundraising arms of a church-- the people who worry about making sure the roof gets fixed and that the money is there to fix it. Occasionally, a council may raise a serious question about a pastor or celebrant, but if the discussion gets too hot, a bishop will step in to make clear who is really in charge.

This is the real "mystery" of 21st century Catholicism: that millions of laypersons (many of whom are literate and even highly educated) have been willing for centuries to accept such tyranny and its resulting subservience, in silence. Despite recent speculation about the future of Pope Benedict XVI and his church, nothing is likely to change, urbis et orbis, as they say, in our lifetimes.

As I've written before, the only way that popes leave their place of power short of natural death is, historically, by having been poisoned, by having someone arrange to have the pope "fall off his horse," or a similar engineered end. Admitting the current pope might have made an error would put every pope going back to Peter in the line of fire. 

Those predicting Benedict XVI's eventual stepping down

over the sexual scandals swirling around the Vatican must face the reality that it's just not going to happen. He's there for life (unless, of course, someone loosens the saddle on the papal horse-- and that is unlikely since he's driven in a limo.)