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Dark rumors have been circulating these past few weeks on possible power struggles in the high echelons of the Roman church. Rivalries are said to oppose two Vatican clans headed  by cardinals Bertone and Ruini. The former is the Secretary of State, almost a prime minister, of the Holy See. The latter chaired the Conferenza Episcopale Italiana, the body that groups the Italian bishops.

However, the really serious ills of Catholicism, better of Christendom, go beyond the feuds in Rome on specific issues. They extend to what many believe is the slow agony of the religious sentiment in Western societies. The secularization of our values goes on since the year 1000 BC- the time when believers expected the end of history. Especially in the last half millennium the hold of religion on the Christian world has steadily weakened, contrary to some semblances.

For instance, scholars commonly believe that the overall history of Spain cannot be understood if the faith element is not seen as the central component of that civilization, even of the Spanish imperial conquests. Today, we have areas of said country where Catholic practice involves much less than 5% of the population. The process started there with the XVIII century Enlightment. True, the Islamic religion looks strong and spreading. But as soon as Islamites are drawn into the modern way of life, they accept the spirit of secularism.

Yet the great religions of the world are challenged today by a calling which is the exact opposite of the agony of faith. As the main ideologies of modernity (socialism, democratic capitalism) increasingly appear empty or ineffective, religions often emerge and recover relevance. This may be cogently true for Catholicism, which is organized around a strong center. Given new circumstances, the Pope might go back to being the supreme guide of the Christian peoples, as he was eight centuries ago.

For this to happen, the Roman Catholic Church will need a different kind of pastor. The Pope of the future should be a revolutionary. He should repudiate two millennia of continuity, move his seat from Rome, sell Vatican real estate and the richest archbishopric palaces, and renounce the official status of prelates. With deeds, giving practical help to the poor and searching for new ways of faith, he would prove the Church as a genuine source of truth. Possibly, not necessarily, such an innovating pontiff should be a very young, saintly monk -not a cardinal, particularly not a diplomat. Benign pope John XXIII was a diplomat for years, and that did not help. To reconstruct, a Pope for the future should demolish first. Continuity may one day kill the Church.

Massimo Calderazzi is Junior member of the Société Européenne de Culture, to whom many eminent
scholars and a few Nobel prizewinners belong.