Should the Pope Be Fired?

That’s a moot question, of course. In addition to being the Vicar of Christ, Pope Benedict XVI is infallible. His public relations team isn’t, however, and it’s perhaps the Vatican’s PR director who should be shown the door. In any event, there are lessons to be learned from the Pope’s recent visit to the Middle East.

If you’re a CEO, executive, HR director, manager or supervisor and are viewed with suspicion by employees — but you want to change that — it’ll take a long time. One visit, a few speeches, and a series of symbolic gestures won’t cut it.

Benedict was viewed with suspicion by Jews and Muslims because of things previously said and done, perhaps innocently, that served as an accelerant to the always inflamed passions of Israelis and Palestinians. (Click here, here and here for more.) Instead of the pilgrim of peace he wanted to be on this trip, Benedict has become a lightening rod for the deeply-rooted tensions in the Middle East.

One example stands out. When you’re German, served in the Hitler Youth, recently revoked the excommunication of a schismatic, Holocaust-denying bishop, and support sainthood for the Holocaust-hands-off World War II Pope Pius XII, you have to do more than make a speech or two about how bad the Holocaust turned out to be. You have to ask forgiveness for the Catholic Church’s (indeed, all Christendom’s) complicity in an event so unspeakable that it’s still difficult to comprehend.

When you venture out among your employees to make amends for past wrongs or ask for meaningful dialogue about existing differences or call for a new day in human relations, say something substantive. Take a symbolic gesture and transform it into a head-turning tool of reconciliation. If you can’t or won’t do that, stay in your office.

1. 

   Paul Weatherhead says:

   May 14, 2009 at 12:30 pm

   Maybe in light of the President of Iraq’s attempt to deny that the WWII holocaust ever existed, the pope’s comments were right on!

   General Eisenhower once said that he wanted a free press to see what happened in the German concentration camps because years later people will deny it ever happened. How true his premonition was!

   Did you ever stop to think, John, that perhaps there were some discussions between the pope and the other religious leaders that occurred outside of public view? When you speak of lessons learned for/from business, you know as well as I do that oftentimes the substantive discussions do not occur when the cameras are rolling.
2. 

   John Phillips says:

   May 15, 2009 at 10:00 am

   Paul,

   Thanks for weighing in.

   I have little doubt that there were discussions between the pope and other religious leaders that occurred outside of public view during World War II. Substantive discussions occurred then as now — in secret.

   There is little to no evidence to support the proposition, however, that these discussions resulted in any action to prevent or interfere with the Holocaust. There’s evidence of individual Catholics and other Christians risking their lives to save Jews but it was a sad time for the Church as an institution, in my opinion.

   Doing the right thing is always difficult, particularly in time of war. There are all kinds of national, political, religious, ethnic, and cultural issues that get in the way. I don’t mean to be too hard on the pope, because I’m pretty sure that if I’d been a young German during WWII, I’d have also been a Nazi, at least early on. That’s a frightening thought, albeit an honest one.

   As we’ve seen recently, doing the right thing in business or the workplace can be difficult when everyone is making lots of money and it appears the boom will never end. Life at any level is complicated.

   John