Have you ever wondered how Popes get the top job? Do you think you have what it takes to be a pontiff? Well now you can find out thanks to the Vatican Board Game, which is an accurate simulation of the papal election process, and was developed to reveal the mysterious inner workings of The Roman Catholic Church.
The brain behind the board game, Stephen Haliczer, is one of the world’s leading early modern historians, appearing earlier this year on the four-part PBS docudrama, Secret Files of the Inquisition. Since we have papal aspirations ourselves (we just need to change those pesky rules that don’t let chicks become popettes), we called Haliczer and asked him for some tips. Turns out Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown should’ve done the same thing, since Haliczer says his book Angels and Demons, which is set against the backdrop of a papal election, is riddled with factual inaccuracies, though he does concede that is “a great read.”
DM: What did Dan Brown get wrong?
Haliczer: For example, Dan Brown tells us that the papal election turns on four specific candidates. He says these are the four candidates for which the cardinals can cast their votes. Well that’s not the case, they can vote for any cardinal they want. There’s no specific number of candidates or specific candidates. The press identified as many as fifteen possible candidates before the election of 2005, and Dan Brown’s telling us there are only four actual candidates, that’s completely untrue.
DM: Why did you create the game?
Haliczer: The Vatican board game really is an effort to dispel some of the mythology surrounding the Catholic Church. In popular culture there’s not only a great deal of curiosity about the inner workings of the Catholic Church, there’s also a great deal of confusion because of the secretive nature of some of its deliberations and processes.
DM: It does seem so much is done behind closed doors, which in a democratic society is not necessarily seen as a very good thing?
Haliczer: But the church is not a democratic society. Ironically, at the very apex it is, because you do have an election for the supreme leader, but otherwise it’s not democratic it’s hierarchical like an old fashioned monarchy.
DM: So in understanding how it all works, do you think people will have more or less respect for the institution?
Haliczer: I think if they play the game they’ll understand a great deal more about it, and they’ll see that the process involves a careful nurturing of talent over a long period of time. In other words the cardinals that do emerge as possible papal material are cardinals that are seasoned. They have a distinguished record in a pastoral sense as archbishops. For example Pope Benedict XVI, as Archbishop of Munich, was very widely respected in his role as pastoral leader. And then they have experience in two very important areas, serving in episcopal organizations like bishops conferences and synods on the one hand, and serving the central administration of the church, the curia. My game reflects that.
DM: I think from the outside, that’s where some of the criticism lies; It’s not the Mother Teresa types, who have seriously served the poor, that get to be pope, it’s the people that are good at playing politics.
Haliczer: You’ll probably find it curious but I don’t like to use the word politics. There is a political dimension to it, but I think it’s more a matter of service and experience, that’s what one finds, and that’s what’s reflected in my game, and in the reality. My game is based on a deep study of the careers of dozens of leading cardinals.
DM: So in a sense you constructed this game with a strictly historical sensibility, rather than having an agenda with regards to the issues it brings up??
Haliczer: Well a lot of the issues that the church confronts in the present day have always been with it. They’re not necessarily new. But my agenda is to entertain, inform and engage the game player.
DM: What would you do if you had the power to change the rules of the real game?
Haliczer: I think the process of election is pretty fair, because you are dealing with prominent cardinals. The College of Cardinals can choose any one of them based on their experience, their influence, and so on. I think if I were to change the process at all I would democratize it at a lower level where there would be more of an electoral process where priests and laity would have a chance to vote. Right now, all of the Latin-Rite bishops in the world are selected by the pope. That’s where the process is not open and not democratic, at the lower level. At an upper lever it is.
DM: Don’t you think the process institutionalizes cronyism?
Haliczer: No but it is inherently hierarchical. It’s top down. It gives the pope a huge amount of power. That amount of power, controlling the appointment of all the Latin-rite bishops in the world, that’s a fairly recent phenomenon. It doesn’t go all the way back in church history at all. Actually most bishops were elected through the first 1,000 years of church history and later the role of the monarchies predominated. That’s a very new thing. The so-called traditionalist Catholics, they don’t understand Catholic tradition at all. The papacy’s power over the appointment of bishops is fairly new. It really dates from the 20th century.”
DM: Wow, we never knew that.
Haliczer: The process of centralization and ironically the separation of church and state in the major countries lead the governments to abandon their role, which had been predominant in the appointment of bishops. The monarchy, they would propose people, and the pope would just appoint the one that the monarch proposed. But when you had liberal democracies in the late 19th and 20 the century, they surrendered their role in favor of instituting the separation of church and state. Well ironically, that redounded to the greater power of the pope, who then filled the power vacuum and took over appointment. In today’s church there are huge debates over the issue of papal control and centralization but these debates rarely make it into the public eye.
If you really want to discover something about a cultist religion, I suggest you take a close look at the MORMONS (Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) kind of a real tongue twister in itself.
The Mormons practice sort of a quasi religion under the guise of "FAMILY VALUES" and their beliefs that as "Men" escalate their importance through their church, their chances of becoming a Prophet (Angel?) also increases. Only a chosen few are allowed to enter "A Temple", via what is called a "Temple Recommend". This ultimate honor created by Church Elders is one that rewards those that have participated in the many rituals, missions and have also contributed "financially" to the church "over and above" what is considered as the paying of normal tithings.
Their's is one of the most secretive religious organizations in the world today. Its actually a male dominated and very hierarchical system that includes a escalating reward system geared to money, influence and secret rituals that reward "A Few" while forsaking the majority of everyday church members.
The idea the Morman human registry was created to benefit all persons by creating genealogy records second to none is a myth created to offset the fact this "Human Registry" was created so the Mormons can (and do) baptize the dead. Although the dead or their families have no choice in the matter as its done during secret ritual sessions while the newer church members are baptized into the Mormon faith assist.