Dear Vatican,

Let me begin with my congratulations to you on successfully choosing a new pontiff.  Pope Francis I, Jose Mario Bergoglio, is certainly a “fresh” choice — first from the New World, first Jesuit, first non-European in over 1,000 years, etc.

You know what, though?  Pope Francis seems pretty exciting and new at first glance.  But if you look a little closer, isn’t he just like all the others?  Gay couples adopting kids is “discrimination toward children” and gay marriage is a “destructive pretension against the will of God”? Condoms are “okay,” but only if for stopping the spread of infections.  As a member of the Society of Jesus, which is generally open-minded on issues of bodily theology, Francis seems a staunch conservative.  Then there was that whole thing back in the 1970s, where the then-priest seemed to turn a blind eye to the persecution of Jesuits (his own community) and killing of thousands of Argentinians by the former dictatorial Argentinian government.

I’m not here to make digs at the new pope, though.  Pope Francis has his moments.  He has been known to criticize bishops and priests refusing to baptize wed-lock babies. Single mothers are people, too, you know. He’s also spoken up against economic inequality, especially in South America where the gap between rich and poor is extremely high; he himself lived in a simple flat and rode public transportation to work, rather than choosing a traditional bishop’s housing and the extravagance that comes with it.

I just want to point out that, while electing Bergoglio may have seemed like a game-changing, “Can we really do this? It’s so new and different!” move to you, the reaction of some of us laypeople around the world is, “Oh. Cool. Another old dude who is slightly less out of touch than the last old dude.”

You know what would be really cool, Vatican?  What would be really cool is if you decided to get with the times, and more importantly, the people.  A lot of people are beginning to question the need for a leader such as the pope.  Isn’t the Vatican just an anchor holding “normal” Catholics back (not to mention dragging them into a swamp of scandal)?  Isn’t the whole “pope thing” outdated anyway?

I don’t think so.  I think the Catholic Church might still benefit from popes.  A shepherd leading his flock, and all that jazz.  With 1.2 billion Catholics running about in the world, we need something to unify and represent us —  Or else we might have even more crazy than could be imagined (instead of concentrating all the weird ideas in a small patch of land near Rome).  However (and this is a big one, guys), I believe that the Office of the Pope is in serious need of reform.

Seriously, ever since the Roman Catholic Church was gifted with land and it started getting ridiculously wealthy (did we forget that whole thing Jesus said about spiritual possessions>earthly material?), the Pope has been more of a king than a shepherd.  Instead of barking down orders about who we can love, how we can love, what we can and can’t do with our bodies, etc., shouldn’t the Pope be guiding us toward those main themes of the Bible like loving your neighbor and doing good works?

And shouldn’t the Pope listen to what his flock is saying? You at the Vatican are aware a majority of Catholic women have, in fact, used contraception at sometime, right? And that we think the whole sex abuse scandal is pretty horrific? And have you heard our tongues stumble over those awkward rewrites of prayers you came up with for Mass? Some of us also think it’s pretty silly that women can’t be ordained:  We would make great popes.  Seriously.  If you don’t think so, read what E.J. Dionne Jr. has to say.

What we need is a Pope that listens to and echoes the people he (or she!) is leading.  A Pope that understands the importance of community but also welcomes individual choice and expression.  A Pope who is open to new ideas and embraces the current time, instead of mindlessly promoting stuffy, alienating, and outdated teachings.  A Pope who doesn’t get caught up in the luxuries of being pope.  A Pope that follows Jesus’ message, not the Vatican institution’s. And, just as important, we need a papal system of equal opportunity.

In the past few decades especially, there’s been a discrepancy between the Vatican’s representation of the Church and the Church on the ground.  I think you could easily attribute Catholic youth inactivity to this.  As someone who was born and raised Catholic, the stories and teachings I grew up with — from Mass, my nonna, and school — are hardly reflected in what the Vatican does.  My generation, besides intelligent, is also pretty direct:  We see that hypocrisy, and we’re not just going to accept it.

As Nicholas Kristof writes, the Vatican seems like an old boys’ club and the real soul of the Church is alive in the grassroots.  He spoke with a woman named Sister Cathy who is afraid that if Jesus were here today, he would say “they got it all wrong!”

And maybe they did.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t fix it.