Vatican faces difficult budget choices as coronavirus pandemic crushes revenue

The Holy See, the central government of the Catholic Church, is in crisis mode as it struggles to find ways to balance its budget in these turbulent times.

Source: Vatican faces difficult budget choices as coronavirus pandemic crushes revenue

Opinion:

While discerning a possible call to the priesthood I got the distinct impression that the Church had built up this somewhat unnecessary superstructure which entails running around performing countless superficial duties that distract instead of deepen one’s understanding of God and God’s workings.

Any thinking person knows about the more visible problems in the Church today: Sex abuse and shady finances, to name a couple. I probably could have resigned myself to praying for the Church’s many problems but the dashing about setting up chapels and hosting Church socials would have finished me off.

I considered becoming a monk but my impression of the monastery I visited was that the brothers were no superstars when it came to the world of the spirit. To me, they mostly seemed like guys fixated in a medieval pattern that didn’t challenge them enough to really grow, psychologically speaking.

Over the years it became increasingly clear that I would probably not become a priest or a monk, meanwhile the fallout from Covid-19 reminds me of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung’s vision of God dropping a huge turd on a church.

Is that vision taking shape today?

If so, maybe it’s okay. Some priests might actually learn how to run a vacuum cleaner, use a duster or a scrubbing brush. And equally important, some might feel their middle-class economic existence is under siege, learn the real value of money and refrain from being so wasteful.

I don’t think the Catholic Church will be destroyed as some might suppose Jung’s vision foretold. For one, the church in Jung’s vision was no longer Catholic but Protestant. And Jung himself believed that dreams and visions are usually symbolic, not literal.

But I do think the Catholic Church will change.

It simply must.