He observed:
An organization, a team, is like the human body. If the head is right, the body is going to function right. But if the head is messed up, then the body is going to be all over the place.
Of course, Ortiz was not actually referring to the pope. He was talking about departed Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine. Nor was Ortiz explicitly quoting Saint Paul’s metaphor of the Church as a body where the good functioning of each part (especially the head) is indispensable to all the other parts and to the whole body. But no doubt he has run across that metaphor during his Catholic upbringing--and no doubt the pope’s departure surprised him just like everyone else (certainly more than Valentine’s!).
Many commentators have already noted that it’s been centuries since a pope resigned, and there’s almost no precedent for a pope resigning for the merely natural, mortal reasons of age, health, and frailty. The pope is human, but many popes have been loath to acknowledge it, and many have even acted as though they were something else.
James Carroll has observed that Benedict’s resignation marks the symbolic shift away from the near- idolatrous divinization of the pope, just as Vatican II moved from seeing the Church he heads as a “perfect society” to the view of the Church as a “pilgrim people.”
But what commentators have generally overlooked is that Benedict’s decision is only the latest in a series of surprising decisions affecting the papacy over the last 50 years. Taken cumulatively, these decisions have dramatically transformed the papacy in our time. Indeed, a case can be made that the papacy has changed more in our lifetime than any other public office in the world.
To appreciate what this really means, we need to see Benedict’s resignation in the historical context created by his predecessors.
When John XXIII was elected in 1958, the papacy was an office marked by aristocratic grandeur and splendid isolation. The pope wore elaborate robes and tiaras and, rather than walking the earth like mere mortals, he was carried aloft on a portable throne amid waving fans like a slave-borne Roman Emperor. He never left Vatican City, but remained “imprisoned” there as a symbol of the Church’s besieged isolation from the hostile world outside. And his rule was solitary too: the proclamation of papal infallibility in 1871 created the widespread belief that henceforth popes had no need of counsel from their fellow bishops or anyone else. Indeed, that proclamation not only culminated Vatican Council I but convinced most bishops that it culminated all councils forever.
John XXIII began to change all that. He divested himself of much papal finery, affected a simpler style, snuck out of the Vatican for evening walks in Rome, and convened Vatican Council II, calling 2000 Bishops to Rome to deliberate the future of the Church over four years, demonstrating that even the head of Christ’s Church could not operate alone.
John’s successor, Paul VI, continued that Council and expanded its agenda. He adopted even simpler styles, including a good deal of modern art and architecture. He traveled in Italy, then to the Holy Land, and finally to the new world, addressing the United Nations and saying Mass at Yankee Stadium. 
He was the first “pilgrim pope,” and he put the papacy back on the map.
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| The Smiling Pope |
Then came Benedict (also not Italian), John-Paul’s chosen “watchdog” yet a quiet modest professor in his past life. Despite his age and shyness, he confirmed the new papacy as a pilgrim office, traveling less than John-Paul but still drawing vast crowds.
He authored several encyclicals that present the basics of Christian faith, hope, and love in modern form, and wrote books on Jesus that he insisted were merely one man’s opinion.
He earned his bad press with several PR gaffes (especially regarding other faiths) and with his belated response to John-Paul II's bungling of the priestly sex abuse scandal. But the same time, he continued to transform the papacy into more and more of a human scale. With him, the papacy seemed less like a monarchy and more like a ministry of service.
Such modesty also helps explain his resignation. When John Paul II was declining with Parkinson’s disease, he deemed it the pope’s responsibility to offer his heroic suffering as a public model to the world. But Benedict is not so ambitious or charismatic, and perhaps is more realistic. Sensing himself incapable of doing justice to the office, he saw his duty in the very human act of accepting his limits, letting go, and letting someone else lead the Church.
And so, five popes later, we find a radically transformed papacy. Gone is the ever-present papal “We” in favor of the simple “I”; gone are many of the regal trappings in favor of simple white overcoats and the popemobile. Gone is the stern dictator who can govern without consulting his own bishops; gone is the splendid isolation in favor of the globetrotting leader who commands media attention wherever he goes. And now, gone is the lifetime office that seems immune to the limits of human living.
Why does all this matter?
Because it turns out that the new papacy aptly fits our times in a way that could make Benedict’s successor--whoever he is—more effective. And ironically, my early reference to baseball is relevant here too.
For just as American sports have witnessed a culture shift to “free agency” that forces successful managers to become “players’ coaches,” so too the culture within Catholicism has shifted. I made this connection six years ago, when baseball’s Opening Day came during Holy Week. I wrote: “we Catholics have entered deeply into the era of faith's free agency.”
You see, back in the day when Ted Williams was baseball’s highest paid player, he and every other player were mere wage-slaves because of baseball’s “reserve clause.” Starting out their careers, players became the “property” of one owner, and remained so unless traded or released. If unhappy with the owner’s offer, their only option was to take it or leave it—that is, play for “short money” or retire.
Then came Curt Flood’s 1970 court challenge to the reserve clause, and the players’ wage-slavery gave way to free agency. In the new era, everything changed. Players with enough service automatically qualified as free agents at the end of their contract, and could negotiate a new deal with any owner they chose. This remarkable shift transformed the face of all professional sports. The upside, of course, is that professional athletes are now “free,” not owned. No longer obligated by law to one owner, they can choose their own team.
Why do I tell this history here? Because the transformation in sports echoes a similar transformation in our Church. In a single generation, Catholics have embraced “ecclesial free agency”—that is, they now can choose their own parish, their own church, or their own faith. They can even choose no faith at all.
Where sports had Curt Flood, Catholics had John XXIII. The renewal he triggered at Vatican II (1962-1965) ended the old “shepherd and flock” system where Catholics sheepishly obeyed whenever the clergy commanded. In those days, any priest knew that he could get people
to obey him by pushing the magic buttons of Guilt, Fear, Obligation, and
Duty.
Once Vatican II’s renewal took hold, all that ended. Most priests stopped pushing the magic buttons, and those who continued to push them soon learned they didn’t work anymore. While my parents’ generation believed a single missed Mass meant the fires of hell, my daughter could calmly declare to her grandfather, “I can do God’s work in my own way. I don’t need to go to church for that.”
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| Vatican II--The Pope Consults his Bishops |
In other words, we Catholics have entered deeply into the era of faith’s free agency. And free agency alters the role of our leaders in both sports and Church. Today, a professional coach may be judged by whether the players “allow him” to coach them—that is, he must earn his authority and their confidence. More and more, the same is true of the Church, where lay people may (or may NOT) “allow” clergy to lead them. The bottom line, as David Ortiz instinctively knew: no organization can survive unless its leaders have a reliable way to motivate the members—and the Roman Catholic Church is largest organization of all!
Small wonder that putting together a winning strategy for motivating “faith’s free agents” looms as the single greatest challenge facing the Church, not just this season, but for many seasons to come.
For spring training 2013, the Red Sox have a new manager. And for spring 2013, Catholics will have a new pope. And just as sport’s free agency means a manager must be the kind of “players’ Coach” who can motivate players to follow his lead, our next pope must be a “people’s pope” capable of inspiring Catholics to follow him. And there is hope we’ll get that “people’s pope,” thanks to the way the papacy itself has been transformed by the last five popes--including Benedict’s decision to become the first living “Ex-Pope” in centuries.
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