When Rome falls…

Published Jan. 23, 2020.

“While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;

When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;

And when Rome falls – the World.”

These lines are from Canto the Fourth in Lord Byron’s long narrative poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. 

The great English poet wrote them sometime around 1817 after visiting the Eternal City.

Actually, they are a translation of words written in Latin by another famous Englishman from 8^th century – Saint Bede the Venerable.

Quandiu stabit colisaeus, stabit et Roma;
Quando cadit colisaeus, cadet et Roma
Quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus.

This Roman amphitheater is actually spelled Colosseum and scholars believe Bede was not describing it, but a large bronze statue (Colossus) of Nero, instead.

You can ignore these small discrepancies, but you cannot ignore the principle. It remains.

Namely, there are some institutions that are so sturdy, so ancient and so symbolic that, should they fall, the ramifications would be devastating and far-reaching. 

When the Vatican falls

No doubt many Catholics see the Roman Church and the Vatican similarly to the way Lord Byron used Bede’s words to describe the Colosseum.

In their view, if the massive apparatus that has become the Vatican and the papacy were to fall, it would be a disaster not only for Catholicism, but for all of Christianity.

Some of us have noted for a number of years now, that the scenario is not that far-fetched. The Roman Church is in a state of implosion. It has been for a very long time.

Catholics in northern Europe or parts of the Americas where the Church was planted centuries ago know this. They have continuously warned the hierarchs in Rome, who, in turn, have only plugged their ears and shut their eyes.

After all, Rome – indeed, all of Italy – has remained a bastion of Catholic Christianity. Forever. The signs and symbols of the Church and the papacy permeate all of society.

The men of the cloth (and perhaps visitors who do not live here) have always believed the Eternal City – and by extension all of Italy – to be a sprawling, one-industry town. And that industry is Catholicism.

At least that is what people have always pretended. But they can’t pretend anymore.

The implosion is being felt in Italy

A well-regarded priest-journalist is predicting that we’ve just stepped into a new decade “that will see, fatally, the implosion of Catholicism in Italy.”

Filippo Di Giacomo, a 68-year-old diocesan priest, says the Italian Church is on the verge of collapse – “its hierarchy, its structures, its territorial presence and, one hopes, its often annoying intrusion” into the country’s civic institution and societal life.

He spelled it out in a fascinating article that appeared on Jan. 17 in Venerdì,the weekly magazine published by La Repubblica, Italy’s second-best selling daily.

The only thing the Catholic Church is capable of at this point, he says, is adding “mediocrity to mediocrity.”

The first thing Di Giacomo notes is that the election of Pope Francis in 2013 marked the end of the monarchical papacy, “an entirely Italian invention from the 11^th century, constructed to defend the Church’s freedom against interference of the Germanic emperors.”

He says this “formidable and efficient machine… has now reached the point of total consumption.”

But he adds that the Church in Italy – and by that he means the hierarchy – is “unable to face reality.”

No doubt this willful blindness is not limited to Italy’s bishops. Prelates from various parts of the world who are currently throwing up obstacles to Pope Francis’ efforts to reform the Church are also closing their eyes to reality. But when Rome falls…

No longer the most Catholic country in the world

Di Giacomo observes the clerical world in Italy continues to boast that the Church in Rome and Italy is top of the class universally. But he says the reality is quite different.

For example, Italy was once considered the world’s most Catholic country and guarantor of the Church’s health and vibrancy. But it now ranks fifth among countries with the most Catholics.

Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines and the United State have all outpaced the Bel Paese. And over the next ten years, Italy will slide further down the list as Catholicism continues to expand rapidly in a number of countries on the African continent. 

“Born and raised in the shadow of the monarchical papacy, (the Italian Church) has accumulated structures spread out over 16 ecclesiastical regions. It includes the Apostolic See, a patriarchal see (Venice), 40 metropolitan archdioceses, 20 other non-metropolitan archdioceses, 155 dioceses, 2 territorial prelatures, 6 territorial abbeys and one military ordinariate,” Di Giacomo writes.

But that is illusory.

“If you look closer, it appears to be a bunch of empty boxes, or on the way to being gutted, because if the pope is no longer ‘begotten not made’ by the Italian Church, this Church must take stock of what it really is,” the author warns.

Lies, damned lies and statistics

It’s enough to look at the numbers. The statistics don’t lie, although Di Giacomo suggests the Italian bishops do. In the very least they are not being completely truthful.

Part of the problem is that it appears that most dioceses and other Catholic entities have not updated their figures in the past ten years. Di Giacomo says you have to look at the “independent research” to find out the real state of affairs.

And it’s not pretty.

There are currently 25,610 parishes Italy, plus several thousand more that are non-parochial churches. Di Giacomo estimates that somewhere between 34,000-36,000 are still open, certainly fewer than 40,000.

The problem is there are only 43,523 priests. An estimated 30,000 are from the diocesan clergy, while the rest are members of religious orders.

That is an alarmingly low number when you consider that most – yes, most – of these priests will soon be dead or retired. Fewer and fewer will be replaced.

The most up-to-date study shows that the average age of priests in Italy is 60, and it’s as high as 64 in some areas. But here’s the thing. Those statistics are from 2009. Di Giacomo claims that in the eleven years since then, the median age of priests has already risen to eighty. Yes, eight-zero!

“The most cynical among the researchers maintain that in order to bring the Italian Church back to the levels of the 1960s and 70s, seminary enrollment would have to increase by 77 percent and, in some regions, by 200 percent,” he claims.

And that, he says dryly, “is a miracle no one seems willing to perform.”

Di Giacomo’s conclusion is that within ten years the Church in Italy will merely be “a Church of abandoned parishes and shrines.”

This is not a pretty scenario, especially in the eyes of Catholics who don’t like the current pope. Because most of them are clinging nostalgically to the various ideological and outdated accessories of this imploding Church, the very bits and pieces the pope says are not essential.

Francis does not seem at all alarmed by this collapse. He knows it must happen so that the Church can be re-born. It must walk the journey of dying and rising.

Going back to our earlier image of the Colosseum and using it once more as a metaphor for the Roman Church in its present state, we can ponder the words of Charles Dickens:

“It is the most impressive, the most stately, the most solemn, grand majestic, mournful, sight, conceivable. Never, in its bloodiest prime, can the sight of the gigantic Colosseum, full and running over with the lustiest life, have moved one heart, as it must move all who look upon it now, a ruin. God be thanked: a ruin!”

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