Regarding Popes, Dopes And Hopes

Monday, 5 May 2025, 1:20 pm
Opinion: Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Did you see the AI-generated photo Trump posted of himself as pope on his Lying Social Network? In response, the bishops of New York State solemnly said, “There is nothing clever or funny about this image.” Perhaps, but a body can’t help but laugh.

The global media is reporting, with a mock serious tone, that “the men responsible for picking a new pontiff are enjoying rock-star status in Rome as they prepare for conclave: the secret, centuries-old ritual of electing a leader of the Catholic church that is due to begin on 7 May.”

“Until they are sequestered, it is in the bars and restaurants in the area surrounding the Vatican where the real talking happens, with some mischievous cardinals exploiting the press while they can to leak tidbits or to discredit the main candidates.”

Though the Oscar-nominated movie “Conclave” has a properly progressive ending, and though its message is irredeemably conflicted as it tries to give relevance to a medieval ritual, it gets one thing right: The conclave is as political as any smoke-filled room.

As was also reported today, “Luis Antonio Tagle, a reformer from the Philippines and a strong favorite, had a rough ride from conservative cardinals after a video of him singing John Lennon’s Imagine emerged on the internet.”

So it’s likely that the soon to be beatified Pope Francis, who dubiously represented one small step for the Church (even though he was unable or unwilling to root out the rot of sexual abuse by priests, not to mention condemn the Church’s complicity in the Argentinean atrocities during the 1970’s), will be replaced by a man who will represent one giant leap backward for humankind.

The lawn signs popping up for Trump for Pope compel the question: Is there any more true holiness in the Catholic Church than there is this putz of a POTUS?

As a boy when the Mass was still in Latin and the priest faced away from the congregation, the mysterious rituals of the Church had their desired effect, producing in my imagination as a child a sense of wonder and grandeur, just as they have in the childlike minds of unaware people over hundreds of years.

And though it was still before Vatican II when I became an altar boy and the rituals remained remote, I saw firsthand that it was all a big show. Now that’s all that remains, which is why the headline, “Rock- Star Cardinals” is so fitting.

The Roman Catholic Church is shot through with darkness and corruption, from its secular power during the Holy Roman Empire, to its vast wealth accumulated over the centuries, to the minimally addressed pedophilia of its priests and abuse by its nuns.

Without doubt, if there was a Second Coming, the first thing Jesus would do would be to disavow any connection with Catholicism and Christianity.

Though the worldwide obsession with one man (the dope or the pope) is understandable given the pathocracy that the USA has become, one cannot lose sight of the fact that America’s complete conduit of collective darkness is a product of American socio-political culture.

The darkness in human consciousness is playing for all the marbles. Never in human history has a non-theologized, non-psychologized philosophy of evil been more urgently needed.

People on the right project the darkness within them onto people on the left, whereas people on the left psychologize evil to the point of writing “evil” with quotes, as if it doesn’t exist except in each person’s interpretation.

The underlying question is: Can the inward, spiritual dimension can inform and be harmoniously combined with the outward political dimension of human life? Of course, not even the Dalai Lama could sustain that balance, and formally relinquished his political position in 2011 over the Tibetan government in exile.

Taking the word catholic literally, Pope Francis attempted to universalize all religions under the banner of inclusiveness. But he was jesuitical by ignoring the inherent contradiction of simultaneously trying to evangelize Catholicism.

Thus his inclusiveness was a whitewash of exclusive Catholic doctrine, ash heap ideas of sin, and the gilded trappings of institutional power that he left intact for the next pope.

The world desperately needs a true moral conscience, one that is both authentically spiritual in that it eschews power in perpetuity, and effectively political in the sense that declares the sovereignty of humanity, upholds the wholeness and health of the Earth, and prioritizes the needs of the poor and marginalized.

Institutions of the past, whether supposedly spiritual or blatantly political, represent mindsets that are utterly irrelevant to the immense challenges of the present.

Reform, whether of the Catholic Church or the United Nations, is completely secondary to a psychological revolution and the creation of a living global body of dialogue and deliberation.

Martin LeFevre

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Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Scoop Contributor

Martin LeFevre is a contemplative and philosopher.

His sui generis “Meditations” explore spiritual, philosophical and political questions relating to the polycrisis facing humanity.

lefevremartin77@gmail