I was listening to a story on NPR the other day about managing President Obama's "brand," and the whole concept annoyed me. Granted, as a blogger, I'm a bit overexposed to "brand" talk anyway - brand/blogger relationships, product-driven content, FTC disclosures, and so on - but I think it was the context that got under my skin. Does everything come down to marketing these days? Does everything we do have to be calculated for image and effect and weighed against the potential public response to it? Having said that, the Catholic Church's brand is in a lot of trouble these days, and it might help just a little if it did give a little more thought to its marketing. That would absolutely not resolve its deep-seated problems, but it might give the public at least some inkling that it understands them, which is a necessary step in addressing them.
I think I've attended church about a dozen times during the eight years since I moved to California, and at least half of those times have been connected with a family event (baptism, First Communion, funeral) and not simply going to Mass. I'm not really agonizing over that, even though I do sometimes miss the ritual (particularly the music). I have disagreements with church teachings and practices in a lot of areas, and while I do appreciate that it does some good in the world (yes, seriously), I can't make peace with taking what I like and ignoring the rest. But I was born and raised in the Catholic Church, in a Catholic family, and educated in its schools. While I don't practice Catholicism at this stage of my life, I can't not be Catholic. (Please excuse the double negative, but it best expresses what I mean to say here.)
I grew up in the Church post-Vatican II. One of the reforms that was intended to come out of that Council was a more active role for the laity (non-clerical Catholics), and to some extent that has come to pass. However, parishes still have no say in the clergy assigned to them, and women are still denied access the priesthood at all. The Church's organizational structure is the old-boys club, with equal emphasis on "old" and "boys."
The Church hierarchy has been retreating from some of Vatican II's reforms for at least a decade, and has been disinclined to revisit two critical matters that never were reformed at that time: birth control and priestly celibacy. Some people believe that the celibacy requirement is a big factor in the ongoing sexual-abuse scandals within the Church. Perhaps it is; I'm not sure I completely agree. But I do believe that the Church's improper handling of the issue - cover-ups and indifference to the criminal nature of the acts - is at least as scandalous as the acts of abuse themselves. And I also believe that no matter how loud public outcry against it gets, it ultimately may not make any difference. The Catholic Church, believing it answers only to the Highest Authority, has always made and followed - and sometimes ignored - its own rules, and it is absolutely not a democracy; institutional change only comes from the top down. Right now, the top appears increasingly out of touch and entrenched in its own way of thinking. That appearance - whether it's accurate or not - is a brand-management disaster, and it's getting worse.
But even if the institutional Church did wise up to its image and try to correct it, the Church's people are pretty savvy, and we need more than talk. We need to see action against the abusers, including civil and criminal action from the proper authorities, since self-policing hasn't worked very well. We need to see new pronouncements and practices that acknowledge the realities of Catholic life in the third millennium. Without genuine change, we're likely to see even more Catholics like me; we may be Catholic, but we're not practicing Catholicism.
More awareness of brand management couldn't hurt the Catholic Church these days, but it will take management changes of a more significant kind, accompanied by changes at deeper levels, for me to resume the practice of Catholicism.
EDITED TO ADD LINK to a BlogHer.com post discussing this topic further (and reassuring me that I'm not the only one thinking in these terms)
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