Take me to Church. Part 2 Catholicism in crisis. The good, the bad, the boring.

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc / LMMIAMI.COM

• The Catholic Church is the mightiest marketing & advertising machinery ever created by man.
• And woman.
• The Church used to be a wildly innovative and adaptable organization.
• It used to have an uncanny knack for showmanship and proselytism.
• It used to attract great talent.
• Great thinkers.
• Men & women of action.
• Why & when did it become so unappealing, uninviting and insular?
• In 2016, by most accounts, Latinos are the most important Catholic block in the world.
• We are the lifeblood and the tent pole of this millennia-old institution.
• Back in the day, in the heyday of Detroit’s car-making glory, some General Motors CEO allegedly said “What’s good for GM is good for America & what’s good for America is good for GM”.
• Well, by the same logic, what’s good for Latinos is good for Catholicism and what’s good for Catholicism is good for Latinos.
• However, Catholicism in Spanish-speaking countries is dwindling.
• In the US of A (the second largest Spanish-speaking country in the world after México) the amount of self-described Catholics is shrinking dramatically.
• It is shrinking in México too, albeit at a slower pace.
• Source: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/02/13/the-global-catholic-population/
• Not all is lost though.
• The Church still has cash, lots and lots of it.
• The Church owns property: lots and lots of super premium high end real estate the world over.
• Possibly more and better real estate than McDonalds, Burger King, Walmart and Home Depot.
• Combined.
• The Church enjoys one-of-a-kind tax exceptions, grants and subsidies.
• It owns universities, schools, hospitals, orphanages, media outlets.
• It has enormous transnational political power.
• However, when it comes to attracting talent, it confronts a serious, existential conundrum.
• This ain’t no rhetorical question: who wants to become a priest or a nun these days?
• Sure, the new Pope has done a magnificent job at infusing new energy to the message.
• Francis is a master communicator possibly ranked up there in the top 50 of the last century.
• The Holy Father has a way with words.
• The media love him.
• A powerful message, unfortunately, is not enough if it is not accompanied by decisive action.
• Mind you, I’m not even asking the Pope, or the Church for that matter, to approve of same sex marriage or so-called reproductive rights (abortion, contraception).
• Let’s not even go there.
• Let’s put those ones in the back burner for now.
• But how difficult would it be for the Church to allow women into priesthood?
• How difficult would it be for the Church’s top brass to allow priests and/or nuns of any gender to get married and start families?
• Think of it: the potential talent pool of candidates to join the church as priests would grow exponentially, overnight.
• Going to church on Sundays would become cool and vibrant again.
• At least out of curiosity.
• Priests -male or female, married with children- would gain a big deal of credibility.
• I mean, what authority does a man of the cloth have today to advise people about marriage, for instance?
• What kind of authority does a celibate male have to advise women about their personal or moral issues?
• Who wants to confess to a middle aged sexually repressed man who might or might not be a pedophile?
• I admit it, I consider myself Catholic but you have to drag me by the teeth to attend mass.
• I only set foot on a church for weddings, funerals and baptisms.
• I have to say that, having a college education myself at, of all places, a Jesuit university I have rarely found a priest who inspires me spiritually.
• Or intellectually for that matter.
• I could count them with the fingers of one hand.
• Why?
• Most sermons at church sound either stale and scripted or just like stream-of-consciousness ramblings by an elementary school principal.
• Peppered, more often than not, with hollow rite, childish superstition and cringe-inducing admonitions.
• Alarmingly boring and uninspiring.
• Again, I ain’t expecting amusement or stand-up comedy.
• I expect inspiration, examples and ideas to be a better person.
• A little marketing showmanship would help greatly.
• A bit of homework, a little preparedness.
• Now more than ever, priests and the Catholic Church in general is NOT talking to a captive audience.
• As discussed above, Catholicism among Hispanics living in the US and abroad is dwindling.
• Full disclaimer: the curriculum of the Jesuit university I obtained my communications degree from in Buenos Aires, the world renowned Universidad del Salvador, included theology as a full-credited mandatory-enrollment course throughout each of the five years required to get a diploma.
• Plus a dissertation.
• I know what I’m talking about here.
• I don’t think that I speak only for myself when I say that going to mass is abysmally boring.
• Of course, I’ve met some brilliant and courageous priests.
• Selfless, relentless fighters for the greater good.
• It is not the norm, unfortunately.
• An awful lot of priests, I’m sorry to say, are simply not up to the job.
• Just bureaucrats on autopilot.
• Or worse, creepy weirdos.
• Priesthood is in a crisis of credibility, leadership.
• The profession itself is more and more unappealing to true talent.
• (Not unlike our marketing & advertising racket, for some reason).
• It is undeniable and unquestionable though that the Church still is the most hands-on organization in the world combating poverty and exclusion in all its forms.
• More than any government or NGO out there.
• Despite all the criticism, despite its lackluster talent pool, its depleted ranks and its fossilized hierarchy, nobody does more to combat poverty on this planet than our beloved, backward institution.
• I repeat: not unlike the advertising industry, the Church needs a new human resources policy to attract new, fresh, diverse blood.
• Why let Greenpeace attract all the cool kids?
• Why let all those funky new electronic Protestant offshoots attract all the young faithful?
• Your Holiness, we really like your embracing lofty causes like climate change or your policy of defusing geopolitical conflicts by extending olive branches to various dictators.
• Methinks though that there are smaller fish you could more easily fry with awesome, almost immediate results.
• Decisive action about the Church’s role in a myriad cases of child abuse, for example.
• Modernizing the Church’s pomp & pageantry, for instance.
• Imagine an institution way less preoccupied with rite and superstition and way more focused on the everyday lives of the flock.
• Imagine an open Church “staffed” with doctors-priests, engineers-priests, lawyer-priests.
• Male & female.
• Married with children.
• Just sayin’.
• There’s an awful lot of work ahead for us Catholics.
• Even for lazy, barely practicing, skeptical Catholics like yours truly.
• Our hyper-social era has made us lonely and depressed.
• Catholic faith, its sense of community and belonging could be the antidote to opioids, painkillers, Prozac, happy pills, prescription drugs, alcohol, shopping addiction, porn addiction and so many other modern maladies.
• The Church could play a fundamental role to relieve the angst and alienation of modern life.
• Which is what multiple small so-called Protestant groups are already doing.
• Hopefully, it is not too late for a Catholic rebirth.
• There’s a Latino pope.
• We Latinos must lead the charge.
• We Latinos suck at science, technological and industrial innovation.
• Or political stability for that matter.
• We do excel like no other culture at combating loneliness and despair though.
• Not by coincidence, we happen to be at the forefront of a global, centuries-old institution that is, literally, God’s gift to the world.
• Possibly the last body of belief and spirituality with a shot at saving humanity from losing its purpose and its soul.