I listened, with my usual admiration, to a BBC programme in which a contributor described the difference between Popes Benedict and Francis using these rather modern terminologies, Velcro and Teflon.
I listened, with my usual admiration, to a BBC programme in which a contributor described the difference between Popes Benedict and Francis using these rather modern terminologies, Velcro and Teflon.
I know these two materials only in anecdotal detail so I am off to my tattered dictionary, for much needed help.
I am back. My all-knowing dictionary has the following declaration:
Velcro: A material for fastening clothes with two different surfaces, one rough and one smooth that stick to each other when they are pressed together.
Teflon: A substance used, especially to cover the inside of cooking pans, to stop food from sticking to them, just as found in my second-hand rice cooker. When used as an adjective, especially of a politician, it means still having a good reputation after making a mistake or doing something that is not legal.
I am not sure this is helpful. The contributor on the programme simply said “everything stuck with Pope Benedict and with Pope Francis, nothing seems to stick”, (my near-perfect paraphrase).
I was baptised as an infant into the Holy Roman Catholic Church and received my first communion and subsequently my confirmation rather young.
In my village Parish, which is named after a dozen or so Ugandan martyrs, with my uncle as Catechist and with a great mind, I recited away the prayers with ease and thus earned my two sacraments, with little appreciation of what they actually meant.
At confirmation, I was told I was then a soldier of God. It wasn’t too difficult to understand as I was already a Sergeant in my grandfather’s make–believe army. The said army comprised my cousins, brother, young uncles, all male members of my clan. I was arbitrarily made Sergeant and this title remains to this day, albeit as a derogatory reference. It is so because the full title included an unflattering description of my rather diminutive stature at the time. I enjoyed some perks at considerable cost to my brother and the other regular members of this motley army.
Some doctrines
Sorry I strayed. Let me pick my way cautiously back to the sensitive issue of papal comparisons. Many Catholics today are confused, few of us bother to think along the doctrines we are called to espouse.
Pre-marital sex, contraception, abortion, homosexual rights and divorce are top most on our “confusion list.”
Pope Benedict stayed true to the traditional “leave-it as-I-found it” disposition.
Pope Francis arrived with a more “dynamic” approach. He is on record to have said to the effect that he cannot see God hating his children, just for being gay. He has recently blessed a couple who had previously been “living in sin.”
The Catholic Church has become, sadly, synonymous with anachronistic, even antediluvian prescriptions, making it ever more difficult to retain membership, let alone attract new ones. Salvation matters are difficult as they are, without the additional burden of knowing one is everywhere a sinner.
“Illicit sex, pre and post marriage, and catches everyone pants down. Contraception has become a matter of course therefore.
Sexual intercourse has been demoted from its sanctity as a means of child making to that of plain pleasure. It’s as common place as watching television or playing a game of “oware.” Both old and young are indulging in it with considerable abandon.
To have it in the books as aberrant behaviour, therefore, is to condemn all humans to Hades.
Sexual orientation matters today have joined the ranks of human rights. One can, therefore, not be condemned for being gay or lesbian. A few countries have earned the wrath of the international community by outlawing it. Ghana is non-committal on this matter. Our public opinion seems to be against an official acceptance of the phenomenon. The arguments are religion-based, in the majority. Anti-gay zealots after another hasten to quote from the holy books to buttress their condemnation but conveniently ignore the underlying tenet of the said books: Love of all, by God almighty.
Church-granted divorce is so inconvenient and passé, it has become the stuff of jokes.
Abortion has become as common place as a manicure.
And who bothers with homosexuals when men walk into operation theatres and come out with boobs galore.
In the light of all this, Pope Francis appears to me as a realist. He cuts the figure of a progressive. He has the onerous task of interpreting the law of God in the 21st century.
He presides over a church that has been corrupted by deviant befrocked men and maybe women as well as harboured mafia-style financial gangsterism, all the while claiming sacrosanctity.
As Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of this ailing company, he is called upon to make innovations that will keep the business in business — for souls.
Can one begrudge him for “relaxing the rules? Or were those rules set in stone, in the first place? Were they simply a corporate manual and have now become outdated?
Was Pope Benedict a status quo zealot and is Pope Francis a progressive innovator?
I am Catholic, I am confused. I am not keen on Velcro.
I can live with Teflon, but in measured quantity?
