The Empire In the Cathedral: Would Jesus recognise His Church?

COMMENT | Gertrude Kamya Othieno | The death of a Pope is no private affair. Over 50 heads of state descended upon Rome, standing beneath Michelangelo’s dome to honour a man whose life mirrored a carpenter from Galilee. Cloaked in diplomacy, spectacle, and centuries of ritual, they gather not just to mourn but to reaffirm an empire. And if Jesus Himself were to quietly walk through St Peter’s Square robe dusty, sandals worn what would He see?

Would He marvel at the incense, the marble tombs, the papal guards with ostrich-plumed helmets? Or would He recognise, in these solemn rituals, the same machinery of power that once raised Him on a Roman cross?

In His time, religious and political authorities conspired to silence a rebel preacher. Fast forward two millennia, and the new Caesars and High Priests attend papal funerals with state entourages and security detail. The powers that executed Jesus now grace His ceremonies. The stage has changed, but the actors and the script—remain hauntingly familiar.

Jesus’s farewell to His followers was breathtakingly humble: a meal of bread and wine, the washing of tired feet, the breaking of bread not in marble palaces but in borrowed rooms. After death, His appearances were discreet—hidden from the powerful, revealed to the grieving. His resurrection was intimate, not institutional. No heralds, no thrones, no empires.

The Vatican’s mourning rituals, stretching across nine days, mirror—at least superficially—the period between His Ascension and Pentecost. Then, it was the coming of the Spirit. Now, it is the white smoke rising from a chimney, as the world awaits not a flame of transformation but a political decision. The choreography is grand; the stakes, unmistakably worldly.

Even Pope Francis, ever the reluctant monarch, had asked for a simple burial. But institutions built on pageantry can not survive simplicity. Power, once tasted, clings even to the grave. The Vatican, however spiritual its mission, functions as a global state—with embassies, treaties, financial empires, and sovereign immunity. It guards its image as fiercely as any temporal kingdom.

And therein lies the tragedy: the transformation of spirituality into empire.

Where Jesus sought to free souls, the structures of religion often seek to control them. Where He taught liberation, institutions enforce loyalty. Where He washed feet, they craft golden thrones. When religion becomes indistinguishable from the empire, it risks enshrining the very forces Jesus came to upend.

Today, as marble floors echo with solemn footsteps and camera flashes punctuate whispered prayers, we might ask: is this the Spirit Jesus promised, or the empire He refused?

Mourning, at its heart, is sacred. Rituals, too, are not in themselves evil. But when ceremonies feed prestige rather than heal hearts, when they brand mourning into global spectacle, the soul of the movement risks being lost.

If Jesus returned today, would He even be recognised among the dignitaries? Or would He, as before, slip unseen among the poor at the Vatican gates—feeding, healing, weeping?

The final choice remains ours. To follow the empire of marble and mitres, or the Spirit that moves unseen, whispering still: “The Kingdom of God is among you.”

One preserves power. The other transforms the soul.

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Gertrude Kamya Othieno | Political Sociologist in Social Development (Alumna – London School of Economics/Political Science – LSE) | Affiliated to Global People’s Network (GPN) – A Socio-Cultural Movement |  Email – gkothieno@gmail.com