Banter Voices

Popes Shouldn’t be Popes in their Eighties Anyway

By Ben Cohen · February 13,2013

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It’s not often I agree with Megan McArdle, but she’s absolutely right when she says that at 85, the Pope is far too old to be doing a job as mentally taxing as running the Catholic Church. This troubling chart from Marginal Revolution shows just how badly cognitive ability declines in the general population over time. And this is not a trick question designed to catch people out. It’s straight up division:

Anyone who has elderly grand parents or parents knows this all too well. How many of you would be comfortable with a relative over the age of 75 taking on full time work in a highly stressful job?

The chart shows a fairly slow rate of decline up until the mid to late 70′s where the ability to do very simple mathematical problems drops off incredibly quickly. There are of course lifestyle factors involved here, and advances in the understanding of neuro plasticity (the ability of the brain to adapt and grow) are helping prolong mental sharpness. But age is something we simply can’t fight (at least for now), and having an 85 year old man in charge of a vastly complex organization reeling from scandal after scandal is tantamount to serious negligence.

As I argued yesterday, it’s entirely possible that Ratzinger is leaving due to the sex scandals in the church. Perhaps 10 years ago he could have handled the pressure better and found a way to survive the relentless assaults coming from former abuse victims and angry parents. But it’s clear at 85 he can’t do it any more.

Dennis

Assuming the possibility of Hillary running in 2016 and winning, and then winning re-election in 2020, would you have the same concerns for someone in a much tougher position doing that job in her late 70′s?
- Dennis
  
  And Frank Lautenberg is 89. Should Senators Not be Senators in their 80s and 90s Anyway?
- Benthedailybanter
  
  Yes Dennis, I would. It’s obviously on a case by case basis, but as I said in my post, 75 and up seems a bit old to be running a massive organization/country.
  - dbtheonly
    
    Ben, I’m more bothered that barely 50% get it right even at the start of the chart.
- JozefAL
  
  Seeing as how the Pope is the effective leader of not only a micro-state (the Vatican) but also concerned* with the well-being of roughly 1 BILLION people all over the world, I’d say that the Papacy is a bit tougher than just being POTUS and Popes also have the added responsibility of presiding over large-scale masses, several times a year–not just at the Vatican, but also when making trips to visit the “flock.” Also, US law (ie, the Constitution) prohibits any individual from serving as POTUS more than 10 years, and there is absolutely nothing (aside from ego) that requires an incumbent President to run for re-election, so even if Hillary were to run in 2016, what of it? IF she ran, and won, she would be (just a few days’ shy of) 69 years, 3 months old. Reagan, when HE first took office, was 17 days’ shy of his 70th birthday. Then, we have the situation of Dubya, perhaps the most genuinely pathetic of all Presidents in recent memory, who was only 54 1/2 when he took office. (At least Reagan’s major flaws could be attributed to his age. To what do we ascribe Dubya’s incompetence?)
  
  A better comparison to the Pope would be our Supreme Court justices (actually, the federal judiciary as a whole). Four of the nine sitting on the Court now are in their 70s, and with the exception of Clarence “Uncle Tom” Thomas, all were at least 50 when they were appointed to the Court. There is nothing in the Constitution requiring a minimum age, nothing about minimum residency requirements, nothing about actual experience, nothing limiting a term of office; the only “requirement” for the Justices is they exhibit “good behavior.”
  *Note that the term “concerned” is more theoretical than it seems to be applied in practice. In the last few decades, it seems that the Pope is more concerned with protecting the priesthood and sticking with “tradition” when it comes to Church doctrine, regardless of how it affects the day-to-day lives of the faithful (such as “no condoms even to help prevent the spread of HIV” or “abortion is a sin even if the mother’s life is at risk”).
  - Dennis
    
    I can’t believe you just thought you made a decent argument at the same time you called Clarence Thomas an “Uncle Tom”.
    
    You’re a racist piece of shit, JozefAL, and I can’t believe your post still stands.

Banter Voices

Popes Shouldn’t be Popes in their Eighties Anyway

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