Pope

An almost unprecidented event has taken place. As many of you will likely know, the Pope has decided to resign. And not with the usual "I'm a corpse now" excuse they've used for the last six hundred years.

There's something truly fascinating about this to me. It's been a turbulent time for the Adherents of the Great and Powerful Cathol. Organized religion seems to be getting a worse and worse rap as the decades turn into centuries. In the age of the internet it's not hard to see why.

I recently read an article that called the internet the death of religion. It stated that religion thrived on the secret knowledge that no other group had. And that with the advent of the freedom of information created by the internet would be the death of religion. I think there may be something to that. And I think that may be one of the reasons the Pope quit.

The world is a different place than it was when the Catholic church was at the height of it's power. It has never been harder to keep traditional ideas of religion relevant in the modern age. It seems to me that we are hungry for spirituality at the moment. The prevalence of fantasy films about magical realms and ghost stories send that hint in the air. We want there to be more then what we currently have. We want that mystical connection to each other and to something beyond us.

The thing is, that I don't think we're going to find that feeling in religion anymore. Across the board there are congregations shrinking. The internet has made it easier then ever to be an atheist. Now, I'm not saying that their aren't still issues. Deep dark issues that make coming out as having no belief in God as much a torturous choice as coming out as a homosexual in some cases.

It's a strange new world and I think that the new path to understanding out spirituality is going to be as much through technology as it will be through the ancient myths of our people.

And I think that Pope Benedict understands that on an intuitive level. The only way forward for the Church, hell for all churches, is to start looking into how to modify themselves to embrace the new world. They have to change. They have to make big changes and face some truly ugly truths. They need to lay bare their scars and stand naked before the world accept the judgment of mankind. Only that way can they once again strive to serve God.

And I don't think that Pope Benedict is the man to do it. The last time a Pope stood down instead of serving till his death was to heal the Great Schism. It was something that rocked the world and frankly should have. And as odd as it may sound, I think that this time is very much the same. In standing down he is offering Mother Church the opportunity they desperately need.

He's giving them the chance to change.