Human Rituals and the Papal Conclave

Like most of us, today I had one eye on the TV to follow events in Rome as the conclave to elect the new pope got underway. Firstly, I was interested because I am a practicing Catholic, but the political animal in me was also curious to see the procedure closer up than we ever have seen it before. And, being someone who has all my life been involved in theatre - as actrice, singer, makeup artist, critic and teacher - the ceremony and ritual were compelling. There is something fundamentally comforting about life's public rituals, whether they are religious, political or cultural. Man has been formed by the rituals of his own imagination. It is perhaps the best indication that we are creation's most intelligent and advanced specie. And, for me, what is so impressive about the Catholic Church ritual is that it is entirely peaceful and voluntary, and widespread over the Earth. That does not necessarily make it infallible, but it does make it unique in human history. Two thousand years of evolving ritual and words to bring people together as children of God...and 1.2 billion people follow where that ritual leads them. In Europe, it has formed the rituals for crowning sovereigns. In Ametica, its vestiges can be found in the inauguration of Presidents. Even the Olympic movement has tried to create rituals - an anthem, oaths, medals - to bind athletes together as a group recognizable among themselves and to rhe larger public. In much of the world, Asia especially, it is the life of the Buddha that provides ritual, although with a much lower profile than the Church's. The Buddha is quoted as saying : "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." That may be the best summation of ritual, tradition and human growth as thinking, feeling, political beings. And if you think about it, the Catholic Church has been through all of that - decadence, corruption, reform, piety of extraordinary degree - because thousands of Cardinals during thousands of years have tried to live up to the ritual and the religious beliefs it represents. Cardinals have connived as politicians, killed as soldiers or brigands, broken their vows of celibacy to have children - in brief, evolved as other humans have. But, every time the Church seemed about to implode, a Pope has come to his senses and led the needed reforms. That is what is happening in Rome now. A Church badly in need of reform has been given the chance to do it by a Pope, Benedict XVI, who saw that he was not going to succeed himself. Those red-capped Cardinals who entered the Sistine Chapel today must feel that heavily. Because it was they who, in a way, drove Benedict off the throne of Peter, just like a political behind-the-scenes clash. And now these same Cardinals must make it right. What they refused to help Benedict do as Pope, they will now, through conscience and belief and chagrin, do for him in his absence. Reform the Church. Their ritual has already called them to their higher obligation. They must now find the Pope to carry forward the task set before them by Benedict XVI.