We were at the zoo. Every few months our parish staff tries to do something just for fun. When you spend a good portion of your time together talking about who’s dying and who’s dead its important to go outside and play once in while. So, we were at the zoo. We had admired the tiger and the elephants, applauded the sea lion’s tricks, wondered at the wolves and were on our way through the reptile house talking about where we wanted to go for lunch when we got the call. Our secretary’s son called to tell us the smoke was white.

“There’s a new pope.” We looked at each other nervously. “Ratzinger” he said.

“Are you sure?” his mother questioned.

“Yes, Ratzinger is the new pope.”

We just stood there in disbelief. I turned to the pastor and asked “This is a drinking lunch right?”

“I think it’ll have to be.” he told me.

“Maybe he’ll surprise us.” offered the music director. “This is a new role” suggested the Pastoral Associate, “maybe the office will change his outlook.” “We should trust in the Holy Spirit” mused another colleague.

We got to lunch. I ordered a beer and started drinking. My cell phone was ringing like nuts-my sister, a youth minister friend, my husband- that one I answered. “He’s chosen the name Benedict.” my husband said, “The last Benedict stopped the anti-modernist witch-hunts and spoke out against World War I”. I interrupted the ordering of appetizers to share this good news with my colleagues. The pastor shook his head, “Wishful thinking.” the gesture seemed to say.

It was the thing that all of us feared but were sure was outside the realm of possibility; the archconservative gets elected. (“Hah! Anybody but Ratzinger, or that Opus Dei guy.” I recall commenting.) “The cardinals know better,” we thought, “they realize the need for a moderate.” We of course would prefer a liberal pope, maybe the guy from Brazil, or Belgium to swing the pendulum back a bit, but a moderate would do fine for the time being. The church needs to heal and centrists bring unity.

A teenager asked me shortly before John Paul’s death “What difference does it make who the Pope is anyway?” Excellent question. Catholics are still Catholics; the mass is still the mass, regardless of who’s sitting in Peter’s Chair.

Her question reminded me though, of so many of the things I have to forget if I’m going to continue working for the church. I can’t think every time I go into a staff meeting, of the changes I’ve seen since I began in ministry. I choose not to recall the vibrant diocese I was hired into in 1987, bursting with the excitement of lay ministry and lay leadership. My first boss, Fr. Bill Trott who was sure the priest shortage was the work of the Holy Spirit “The leadership of the laity will only come to full fruit when the priests are the mystics of the community.” he would tell me. I was new enough not to understand what it meant that as I was learning the ropes of youth ministry our local hero Fr. Charlie Curran, a professor at Catholic University of America in Washington, was being removed from his teaching position under pressure from the Vatican.

I remained hopeful as I served on our Diocesan Women’s Commission and reviewed draft after draft of the ill-fated American Bishop’s Pastoral letter on Women in the Church and Society that made the not so radical statements that sexism is a sin. Too radical for this church we learned when our Bishop returned from Rome.

It would be impossible to stay if I thought of the way the Vatican clean-up crews made their way from diocese to diocese, how I’d seen friends removed from their teaching positions at seminaries, course titles changed because they sounded too liberal, dynamic theologians suddenly unwilling to offer notes of their talks because they’d been reported to Rome one too many times for raising the “wrong” questions, and hopes of forward movement in the church dashed as more and more conservatives were elevated to Bishop. I can’t stay and still think of how one of our most vibrant city parishes, on fire with the Gospel, was lost to the crack-down on liberal dioceses.

Should I stay or should I go is a question that has occured to me on a fairly regular basis, but there has always been the thought that with new leadership our hopes, my hopes, for a forward-moving church would be restored. I have been able to rationalize, in spite of my disgust with Catholic right-wing maligning of feminists, gays and lesbians, and immigrants, by hanging on to the idea that it can’t last. Right?

I don’t think I’m the only one whose been biding her time. I’ve been (fairly) quiet on the issues that Ratzinger called for silence on- the ordination of women to the priesthood, birth control to name a few- but I think that time has come to a close. I’m tired of not talking about important things- sexuality, power, who is allowed to do what and who gets to say so. I’m tired of working and worshipping in an environment of fear and mistrust. I’m NOT leaving and I’m NOT going to be quiet.

We’ve got a new pope, he’s the guy that brought us loyalty oaths and silenced countless theologians. He’s the man South African Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu called a “rigid conservative” out of step with the times, whose name has been synonymous will Roman power and authoritarian rule. Maybe he will surprise us. In the meantime, anybody need a drink?