The church/state correspondences were never more graphically demonstrated than in recent months. The church, especially the Catholic Church, is in disarray because the scandals sometimes appear to overwhelm institutional claims. When one priest is found guilty of child abuse, one's instinct is to wince and quickly remind oneself that, after all, one of the 12 Apostles was feckless. But when day after day fresh evidence accumulates of priestly malfeasance, the observer begins to wonder if the problem is endemic. And some go on to wonder whether institutional weakness denotes a structural weakness. Denotes ... a bleeding faith.
So is it in the secular world. One chief executive who cheats brings on nothing more than a shrug. If all that he has done is cheat on his taxes, he can go on to jail more or less unnoticed.
But if he cheats by concealing the truth, he has done this at the expense not merely of Uncle Sam, who can get by with one man's pared-down tax return. He is cheating an entire community -- a very large community. Most directly affected, of course, are the investors in the CEO's company. But the damage is not limited even to them. Also injured are investment advisers, who project and make recommendations based on figures released by the CEO, and the men and women guided by them.
Suddenly the whole world seems to weaken from misplaced trust. On Monday the euro, which we sometimes discountenanced as the Confederate money of Europe, rose and actually surpassed the dollar, and now we ask which will come first, a reordering of the trade balance brought on by the cheaper dollar, or a deliberated refusal by foreign investors to make up that trade imbalance by buying deeper into the U.S. economy.
So that attention turns to the ground rules. What does the pope say? What could the pope say to turn the stricken church to safety? What new rules might be promulgated? Did the bishops, meeting in Dallas, go far enough? Did President Bush, addressing Wall Street, go far enough? If immediate impressions are informative, not nearly far enough to curb sheer anger in investors.
Television provides us with a truly insolent barometer of public reaction to public poultices. I began this reflection with the television image, intending with the corner of my eye to note only the trajectory of Dow Jones. When Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan was introduced to the Senate Banking Committee, the Dow was down 180 points. He is still talking his soothing words -- Inflation continues low ... economy on road to recovery ... housing starts are high -- and the Dow is down 228 points.