Death of a pope has raised our shares

It is ironic and somewhat sad that it has taken the death of a pope for Catholics to discover how incredibly lucky they are.

There we were, feeling so dreadfully sorry for ourselves and even positively persecuted by the world’ s media clobbering us with a tsunami of controversy over everything from sex scandals to racism.

Many of us were probably tempted to retreat into our shells, to ignore the world and pray fervently for some sort of consolation, and delivery from a world that so clearly held us in contempt.

Then our pope died, and all the world mourned with us Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Gentile, believers of every faith, and miracle! even legions of non-believers. All showed in every city in the world an enormous amount of respect, not only for a pope whom they acclaimed as one of the great leaders of the world, but also respect for a Church which they could clearly see, despite all recent bad publicity, as one of the great churches of the world.

I have no doubt that this massive outpouring of sympathy and reverence for Catholicism caught most of us by surprise, from the most apathetic parishioner to those that tread the hallowed halls of the Vatican.

What I found most remarkable about this phenomenon was that during the six weeks when the focus of the world’s media was so firmly and respectfully focused on our Church, it has taken non-Catholic commentators to answer questions that have been vexing us for so long.

The media were asking why so many young people were clearly moved by these occurrences, particularly since the late pope had been seen to be conservative on issues of homosexuality, the use of condoms, and the role of women in the Church.

It was a Buddhist who gave this explanation: “What the Catholic Church is doing is not so much being inflexible when it comes to the use of condoms, for example, but rather the Holy Father is simply setting ideals to which every human being should aspire.”

This and other similar notions seemed to multiply in the media to the point where suddenly the Catholic Church was not so much being seen as a stodgy, stick-in-the-mud, conservative bunch of blinkered old fogies, but rather a proponent of logical idealism. Suddenly abstention rather than the use of condoms started making sense to many of those who could not see sense before.

Perhaps I am being a little over-optimistic and idealist myself, but either way, one thing is for sure: the passing of a pope has given Catholics an entirely new view of what others think of them.

Personally, being an ardent marketer, I would like to see the Catholic Church press home this advantage and not simply slip back into our old complacency where most of us simply regard membership of our Church as going to Mass on Sunday and not getting involved in religious arguments.

Now that the world has elevated our standing to way above where we thought it was, I believe every Catholic should start wearing their hearts on their sleeves and be prepared to stand up proudly and publicly in support of everything we hold dear about our Church.

We need to take a leaf out of the books of Orthodox Judaism whose members proudly wear the trappings of their faith in public and make no excuses for their beliefs, customs and way of life. And when they are attacked, they stand up and fight back.

I have the feeling that many Catholics have been very defensive and almost apologetic about many of the Vatican’s standpoints. Now that we have seen such respect for the fundamentals of Catholicism, hopefully we will have the courage to turn defence into attack and explanation into evangelisation.