So it's perfectly OK to be a hapless incompetent if your earliest predecessor was a hapless incompetent too? Got it! You know, this religious logic thing is easier than I thought.

This line from the article crystallizes the problem.

>>...a Petrine Ministry... cannot be compared with CEO, or MD, president or monarch because all of these are seats that are made on earth, not made in heaven<<

Which goes a long way to explaining why it is that a supposed human being (who, incidentally, was himself "made on earth", and in Nazi Germany of all places) believes that he can reject the idea that his organization has wilfully covered up the crimes of its management team for so long.

It is significant too that his inaction was much in the mould of the CEO of a company in scandal's spotlight, who has been advised by his PR flacks that to admit such failings of governance would permanently tarnish the firm's image in the marketplace.

As every corporate disaster consultant will tell you, this is a very short-sighted strategy, one that will eventually have the exact opposite result to that which was anticipated.

"Can the Petrine Ministry of popes seriously be compared with the tenure of global CEOs?"

Depends… Many global CEOs would regard themselves as god's representative on earth if not god himself – though the customers of their corporations probably wouldn't.

But it is an interesting analogy, this Petrine business with a corporation. It's a magnificent business model, given that shareholder value and dividend receipts are deferred until after the death of the individual and not payable on the same plane of existence as that in which the income was derived.

In addition, when the receivers are sent in it's a good thing – as they're only there for the wine and crackers.

I've never read such a silly article!

Surely the author cannot believe that in this modern day, anyone would believe that the Popes 'are made in heaven' .

The Popes are 'made' by their parents, and are just as human as anyone else on earth, and no more 'important' than anyone else.

I hope that the next Pope is not an elderly, sick man again. It was quite painful watching the last Pope drag himself around when he was so obviously ill.

Popes should be made to vacate their position if they are not physically able to do their job. It is cruel to make them go on if they are too frail.

Anyone who believes or promotes this nonsense must have rocks in their head. Even more so if they are not a "catholic".

"Popes are made in Heaven" what utter rubbish, popes are made with a sperm and egg uniting here on good old earth. But then anyone who waddles around in a white outfit with outstretched hands can make a lot of stupid people believe that he has been ordained by some superior being in heaven, out of a whiff of white smoke, men only have decided in a boardroom who is going to be their next leader, nothing more nothing less, nothing to do with fairies in the sky.