Ambition

It is a strange irony. A women dies who quoted  St Francis on the steps of 10 Downing Street and then went and made  war,  a man becomes Pope who  takes the name of Francis so everyone hopes he will make peace. As if two worlds were in conflict  and either one   might just possibly be more likely to win. There has not been a public figure so heartily condemned as Margaret Thatcher or a public figure of whom more is expected than the new pope. Whose work and legacy will be most significant for the world remains  to be seen.

Prime ministers and  popes have  similar problems. Both are surrounded by ambitious people. Either of them  may be ambitious himself or herself. Most of the historical problems of church and state are about ambition. And greed. And the awful struggle between resulting good and ill. Similar problem for both institutions. For instance, massive privatisation  took place when Catholics rebelled against their religious leadership centuries ago and created what became known as the Protestant Reformation, when monasteries  along with their places of refuge, medical facilities and schools were taken over for private profit, even the very stones being used for what became known as “great houses”; present day governments are selling  off what could be, and often are, national possessions to private owners for private profit, so  history is always, as they say, like history. It never happens just once. Church and state and everything else can be, have been,  are being, will be  used for private gain, power or pleasure. The wonder is not that it happens – it would be  a wonder if it didn’t – but that we always seem surprised when it does. Like being surprised if it rains.

One thing we are entitled to be surprised about though is that our universities, media, churches and suchlike seem  so complacent about it ; we may make the excuse – or give as reason- that  the universities have lost their independence, depending for funds too much on government and big business, that the churches  have lost their power to think and speak in realistic moral terms  because they accepted that private and communal obedience are   the  overwhelming  virtues , that the media are advertising media rather than informing media  because they have to survive on money from somewhere and are more likely to get it from those who sell everything than from those who want to know something.  All of this is sadly true but there were  times in our history  when penalties for speaking your mind were much more severe than they are now. Yet some people did it.  And now there are more ways of saying your piece than ever before. For some reason we have not got round to thinking of the communications media  as means for us to say  what we want  to say to the world at large; we seem still to think of the communications media as ways in which “they” will speak to “us”.  We can  think out, write out , arrange, edit , set up books of our own, but many people who have realised this have set about communicating so many trivial – or hurtful – things that many sensible people stand aghast at the frivolity of it all. Nero still plays and sings while Rome burns but our  Nero may live just down the road from us. And in face not just of danger but of such triviality one is tempted to turn away and think of something else.

But the great questions of the world , about good and bad, about happiness and sadness, about sickness and health, about redistributing  the world’s goods not just among the already rich but among us all, these questions are ready and waiting. And we would make a mistake of we are simply waiting also,  for someone else to give us the answers. If Margaret Thatcher ruined some lives and  enhanced some , that is a matter of fact; if a new Pope can make a new Sacred Deal, that’s a  possibility.  But we can  decide what effect if any that has on our lives and do something about it , however small that may seem . The man who wrote , The great appear great because we are on our knees looking up at them, was shot dead for his trouble, but we are still remembering there was great   sense in what he said.

22.4.13