maleness

I am looking for
a way to understand why
self-dishonesty
kicks in — immediately
I try to respect the Pope

What a crap poem. But it states clearly a real problem. There are some extremely shady transactions going on behind consciousness whenever I consider what I really think of the Pope. Not this particular Pope (who, from all I can tell, deserves huge love and respect) — but the institution of the Papacy. I was born into an Anglican family, converting to Catholicism at the age of 23. Can I accept the official version of the story whereby the Pope leads the global attempt to wait for the Second Coming of Christ? Nope. I find that actually quite laughable because I don’t believe Christ is coming back — at least, not in any literal sense — yet the Pope is a literal, physical embodiment of that hope. And just the fact that our planetary civilisation has, in effect, designated one man to carry that weight of expectation — is incredibly poignant. I am aware of simultaneously wanting to trample on the institution of the papacy and wanting to treasure it. No single conscious position can do just to both these two extremes. It’s clear no-one explores their feelings towards the Papacy without exploring their relation to fatherhood, and by extension maleness in general. Over the last 48 hours I exchanged several emails with my own father — a perfectly genial exchange — but touching on some dark areas of pain in his relationship with his father before him. I expect this helps explain why I dreamed of the ultimate patriarch (the Pope) last night.