
Vatican II:
The Model of a Failed
Corporation
Imagine a corporation that is very large;
indeed, has many thousands of managers and employees, and what is more,
more than a billion customers. The corporation has prospered for 2000
years with the business model it had developed and which had been rigorously
maintained by a succession of over 200 presidents and many more board
members. The customers have been satisfied and in no way found the business
wanting in the way of customer service and business policy.
A new president is then elected — and without any compelling
warrant or reason, decides to change the business model dramatically.
The managers and the employees are told — despite any evidence
— that the business is wanting and could prosper more, even though it
is at the apex of any competing businesses by several magnitudes of
order. Business had been good, the customers happy, and the employees
as well, but he and a handful of likeminded board members wished
to change not only the model, but the erstwhile universally admired
architecture of its thousands of stores throughout the world, as well
as dramatically simplifying the interiors to more accord with its less
successful competitors — and what is more, totally changed the business
language itself, so that these formerly unifying features were
to be discarded in favor of disunity. Once again, it must be emphasized,
there was no compelling reason to make such drastic changes to a
remarkably successful corporation.
The
model is changed according these new principles that differ greatly
from the former.
Decline Hailed as
Growth
Within
a few years, this once monolithic business, viewed as a paradigm of
success in its area of competence, then loses tens of thousands of employees
and managers and — most importantly — the customer base, once
in the area of 75% repeat business became 40%, and in a few more years
less than 25%.
Remarkably,
the new president — and his successors — hail the change as a
success, despite metrics in every
area that show it in decline — almost in receivership! The stores
close by the thousands, or are consolidated in an effort to stop the
hemorrhaging of customers.
Then,
in the middle of this disastrous downward spiral, the corporation is
hit, in successive years, with over $3 Billion dollars of loss in the
way of lawsuits due to negligent hiring practices, practices that resulted
in employees being charged with large-scale and sordid misconduct, misconduct
of the vilest sort together, together with the incessant litigation
that followed. Shall the customers pay for the company’s
negligence — or rather, pay the lawyers and the victims
for the negligence of the managers? The corporation, as a consequence,
must sell off large portions of it’s portfolio and close many, many
of its stores. The customers are fewer and fewer, and what is more,
there are no new and trustworthy employees to be had as a result
of the magnitude of the scandal. The schools of management
(Seminaries) must, of course, close also, for there
are no more candidates (seminarians) for the positions which themselves
are fewer and fewer.
Despite
all this, the Chairman (in the case of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis)
and the Board (the bishops and cardinals) are determined more than
ever — not to return to the successful and prosperous method
of the last 2000 years (the Tridentine or Latin Mass that
preceded Vatican II for two millennia) — but to continue in its
new business model which is crumbling daily with still further
departures from the past, and is itself becoming increasingly arthritic
— together with its remaining customers.
What
do you see in all this? What is your assessment of its
management and its future as a viable business? The question, of course,
is rhetorical, except for a doctrinaire few who maintain that — despite
all appearances and metrics — it is actually prospering in its
manifest decline.
Then,
in the middle of this disastrous downward spiral, the corporation is
hit, in successive years, with over $3 Billion dollars of loss in the
way of lawsuits due to negligent hiring practices, practices that resulted
in employees being charged with large-scale and sordid misconduct, misconduct
of the most vile sort together, together with the incessant litigation
that followed. Shall the customers pay for the company’s
negligence — or rather, pay the lawyers and the victims
for the negligence of the managers? The corporation, as a consequence,
must sell off large portions of it’s portfolio and close many, many
of its stores. The customers are fewer and fewer, and what is more,
there are no new and trustworthy employees to be had as a result
of the magnitude of the scandal. The schools of management
(Seminaries) must, of course, close also, for there
are no more candidates (seminarians) for the positions which themselves
are fewer and fewer. It is the state of the Church today. And many increasingly
wonder if it is the same Church at all — given the changes that followed
— and still follow — that ill-fated Council that effectively defected
from the Faith and went the Way of the World.
Children’s
parents and grandparents: tell the children of something which
once was unspeakably beautiful — and manifestly holy.
And
pray it will be so again.
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
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editor@boston-catholic-journal.com

Totally Faithful to the
Sacred
Deposit of Faith
entrusted to the Holy See in Rome
“Scio
opera tua ... quia modicum habes virtutem, et servasti verbum
Meum, nec non negasti Nomen Meum”
“I
know your works ... that you have but little power, and
yet you have kept My word, and have not denied My Name.”
(Apocalypse
3.8)
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