UNITED KINGDOM
The Conversation
Brendan Canavan
Lecturer in Marketing, University of Huddersfield
When the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, told a newspaper the firm was “doing God’s work”, his appeal on behalf of higher powers was an attempt to rescue the tainted reputation not only of his own investment bank, but of the entire industry. But for the Catholic Church, even this most obvious of strategies might not be enough to stem an inexorable decline.
The Catholic church is one of the oldest and most profitable brands in history. Financial details are kept sketchy, but this vast multinational dwarfs any other. The Economist has estimated that, in 2010, spending by the US branch of the church and its various entities (probably the wealthiest and least opaque of the global organisation’s chapters) was $170 billion. Yet the church is beset by problems.
As many brands have found out (the BBC’s experience of sex abuse claims for instance), handling the fallout from a disgrace is perhaps more important than the scandal itself. The drip feed of negative headlines associated with sexual abuse and its cover up has irreparably tarnished the Catholic brand for many.
There is a more fundamental threat to Catholicism however: irrelevance.
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