Yeah, even a state that tries to meddle with internal workings of Church on big scale (China) tries to do so by quietly subverting the priesthood, even they consider trying open conflict by setting up antipope or something similar to be too risky.folti78 wrote:This, without a significant schism in the Catholic Church reaching up to the highest levels, you only get some splinter groups who may elect their own popes but they are usually marginal groups.
I think the problem is more that people in Vatican have both too little and too much power. Too little because everyone involved holds only a fraction of the power; Too much because Vatican has access to huge influence and money. It encourages people to both become drunk with power and to set up cliques to control that power effectively. Each faction fortifies itself in some unofficial fiefdom, trying to grab centres of power of other groups. Only Pope can effectively change balance of power but sometimes resistance might be too big even for him.Lord Revan wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Benedictus the de facto leader of the church during the later part of predesessors reign (when JP2 was too ill to do it himself)?
Take for example Vatican bank - it's de facto unique bank entity enjoying state immunity, moving huge sums all over the world - a lot of criminal groups and less than clean companies will see huge value in that and will try to corrupt handlers to use it for themselves. Or Vatican diplomacy - they have network of "embassies" much larger than virtually any other country in the world, also operating huge sums and moving them to needed regions, creating a lot of opportunities for misuse. Sadly, good priest will rarely be a good manager, especially one convinced he is infallible and chosen above others.
That's why two "ministers" mentioned above didn't lose power - these Cardinals are needed to oversee all temporal matters since any disruption of these would be far more disastrous for everyone concerned than fiscal cliff crash in USA.
