EXCERPT:
Catholicism has often depended on good branding. When millions of immigrants from Ireland, Poland, Italy, Canada, and Portugal faced discrimination and thwarted opportunities, American Catholicism thrived in its trademark working-class role as "your refuge, your strength, your protector." Meanwhile, in much of Europe, Catholicism's brand as the aristocracy’s ally against the working class weakened the Church well into the 21st century.
But such national variations in Catholicism's brand were challenged in 1959 when Pope John XXIII called for a world-wide council of bishops (Vatican II, 1962-1965) to renew the Church with a new, improved brand of Catholicism.
This re-branding did not abandon Catholicism's ancient values and traditions, but it did re-package them to enable the Church to more powerfully penetrate the modern, global culture that had emerged in the 20th century. Picture John's successor, Paul VI, trading in the old sedia gestatoria (portable throne) for a bubble-top Lincoln, rolling into Yankee Stadium to celebrate Mass carrying his favorite crosier with its modernist rendition of the crucifix, and you get the picture: it's still the Pope, but the packaging has changed.
John XXIII, Vatican II, Paul VI, John-Paul II -- all these transformed Catholicism's brand, so that by 2000 the Catholic Church was once more a moral force to be reckoned with, and moreover was re-fitting itself for a global future, replacing much of its trappings (descended from the Roman Empire and medieval Europe) with new, more truly global features. By 2000 it was no longer our grandparents' Church -- the stodgy chrome-and-fin-studded gas guzzler of the 1950s had given way to a simpler fuel-efficient model that brought the Pope to 100 countries in twenty years.
But Paul VI also planted a second legacy, when his 1968 birth control cyclical Humanae Vitae left millions of Catholics -- and millions more outside the church -- wondering if Catholicism ancient wisdom had revealed its Achilles heel: its inability to comprehend human sexuality in the post-Freud era.
In retrospect, 1968 marks the birth of another, sex-obsessed Catholic brand that has competed with the Vatican II brand for more than 40 years. Of course, common sense tells us that competing brands are bad for any enterprise; but worse than that, the 1968 brand of seems to be taking over—and taking the Church's good name with it.
For millions of Catholics, Humanae Vitae alone was enough to dismiss the Catholic hierarchy’s authority on matters sexual, but things got no easier after that. The 1970s and 1980s saw huge numbers of priests leaving to marry, and equally large numbers of younger men by-passing their priestly vocation to avoid committing to celibacy in the first place. Mass attendance began dropping, and by the late 1980s American Catholicism's brand included increasingly empty pews, empty seminaries, and even closing parishes.
Sexually-loaded moral issues like abortion, homosexuality, and women's ordination reinforced the split between loyalists convinced Rome was always right and heartsick faithful equally convinced that the “Old Boys’ Club” had lost touch with human nature.
Then the 1990S are brought, over the distant horizon, a sex-based tsunami rolling in from the past. First in Newfoundland, then in New Orleans, then Fall River and Springfield and Palm Beach, and finally crashing ashore in Boston in 2002, its backwash splashing across all oceans, came the sex-abuse scandal...
The laity's reluctance to challenge authorities -- especially the reluctance to bring suit -- had protected the ecclesiastical cover-up from exposure, but that only meant the tide of evil kept rolling deeper and higher until its eventual crash brought scandal of biblical proportions. Imagine BP claiming its spill was "only a gulf problem," only to have more spills break out in every ocean it drills. Imagine Toyota claiming mechanical failures were rare, only to have 5% of all their cars crashing on our interstates.
Like those corporations, the hierarchy makes feeble PR pleas, only to commit further gaffes that further damage its brand…The Vatican announces new rules urging bishops to report priest-criminals to authorities if civil laws require it… then that same Vatican publishes a document explicitly linking pedophilia with ordaining women, under the common heading of "grave sins" committed by clergy.
…Today’s brand of Catholicism is so tarnished that, when the Church presents its face to the world, reactions range from shame to disgust to laughter.
The Church's mission cannot be accomplished by a laughing-stock, a public pervert, or a village idiot. If these are the public face of today's Catholicism, there can be no more urgent task than rescuing our tradition from such a PR disaster and restoring its good name with a better, credible, authentic brand of Catholicism.
How about a pre-owned “Vatican II”? It's got some miles and nicks on it, but its owners only drove it on Sundays, and never really gave it full throttle on the open road. No model out since can match it. With a little work, it'll run like it’s Brand New.
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