Catholics must learn to resist their popes

Pope Francis has a funny way of naming and shaming certain tendencies in the church, using insults that are inventive, apposite, and confounding. His ear is finely tuned for the way the Catholic faith can be distorted by ideology. And I'd like to imitate his example when I say this: Most Catholics are completely unprepared for a wicked pope. And they may not be prepared for Pope Francis either. They are more loyal to an imagined Catholic party than to the Catholic faith or the church.

Between Pentecost and the launch of Vatican.va, most Catholics did not have access to the day-to-day musings of their pope. The Roman pontiff's theological speculations have been of almost no interest to Catholics throughout history, and never became so unless he was a great theologian already, or there was a great controversy which the authority of the Roman Church might settle. To the average Catholic living hundreds of miles from Rome the Faith was the Faith, whether the pope was zealously orthodox like St. Benedict II or a sex criminal like Pope John XII.

But the social crosscurrents of the last 50 years of Catholic life have made the pope a more intimate figure in the lives of Catholic believers. During the post–Vatican II upheavals in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, conservative Catholics developed a mental architecture that told them that even if their parish priest or local bishop was lax, immoral, or even vaguely heretical, there was practically a living saint in Rome, whose unassailable orthodoxy, personal charisma, and good works were taken as the living sign of the indefectibility of the church. The solidity of the message coming from Rome has been for many Catholics the practical experience of this truth about the church.

The near omnipresence that the modern papacy achieves through media makes me worry that the institution of the papacy would have already hit upon a grave crisis if it weren't for the unusual theological ability of Joseph Ratzinger, first as cardinal and later as Pope Benedict XVI, acting as a ballast. Modern media, especially the modern Catholic media, has brought the pope into our homes, across the radio, in television, and into our niche media world. He's in the browser of many Catholics every day. And conservative Catholic media relies heavily on the inflated imaginative role of the papacy, just like British tabloids rely on the royals. The pageantry, mystery, and fame attached to the office are a great way of selling magazines, getting clicks, or raising funds. He is the worldwide celebrity that represents "us." He's the reason the Faith gets talked about by others.

When you add to this the fact that the cultural formation of most engaged Catholics is primarily the ideological combat of political and cultural factions, they tend to treat the pope as their "party leader," and to treat "the world" as an opposing party. It's difficult to describe how distorted this mental image is to true faith, but some examples could suffice.

Look for instance at the reaction of conservative Catholics to the pope's phone call to Jaquelina Lisbona, a woman in Argentina civilly married to a divorcée, in which Francis supposedly counseled her to practically ignore church teaching on divorce, adultery, confession, and Holy Communion.

Phil Lawler at Catholic Culture speculated, "[F]or all we know, she and her husband are now living as brother and sister, in which case there would be no reason why she could not resume receiving the sacraments." Of course, if this were the case the parish priest could have determined this without the extraordinary phone call from Christ's vicar.

Before deleting it (perhaps in embarrassment), Jimmy Akin reminded his readers at the National Catholic Register that the pope has the power to act as the church's chief legislature and to execute judgments immediately, and so therefore he could annul the first marriage and radically sanction the second, implying all this could be done over the phone. That he would have short-circuited the church's entire juridical process, undermined faith in the church's discipline, and undercut Catholic priests seems to bother Akin not at all. This same defense was used to justify the pope's breaking of liturgical rubrics, essentially employing the Nixon defense that "when the pope does it, it's not illegal."

Let me suggest that these two good Catholic men are acting not as church men but as party men, and falling into what Hillary Jane White aptly diagnosed as "papal positivism." Lawler and Akin are not alone. The bulk of Catholic media is devoted to moon-faced speculation about how the discreet governing decisions, words, and gestures of the pope are accomplishing some larger goal that we further speculate must be in the pope's head or heart. It's very easy to make the pope into a saintly superhero when you act as his ventriloquist.

Conservative Catholic apologists say all the right things when you press them. They say that the doctrine papal infallibility does not imply papal impeccability, but the bulk of their commentary about Pope John Paul II in relation to the child-abuse crisis or Pope Francis when he goes off-script seems based on the idea that the pope is irreproachable.

Party membership and church membership are not alike at all. Party bids its members to spin, minimize, and explain away supposed contradictions between one party leader and the next, to hide deviations by party leaders from the party platform. Because party members cannot know the outcome of the next election, crimes, oversight, or simple mismanagement by the party leader are treated as much less serious offenses to the cause than the scandal that would come from admitting or publicizing them in the sight of the opposing party.

Unlike a party, the church already knows the outcome of its election; the blessed reign, the accursed don't. The church already has victory. And so the church and its believers do not depend on the righteousness of the pope; the papacy and the church depend on the righteousness of Christ. The Catholic faith teaches that the pope has the same duty to remain constant in the faith as we do, the Holy Spirit doesn't turn him into an automaton upon his election. If he lies, we must rebuke him in charity. If he fails at something, we should help him. He ain't just the Catholic heavy, he's our brother.

Church members have assurance that comes from God not Rome, the type that if it ever sunk in would prepare them for martyrdom. Party members suffer from a twitchy, defensive anxiety, the type that when it sinks in makes them petty see-no-evil demagogues.

The Catholic Party eclipsing the Catholic Church has a distorting effect on the world's perception too. If the loudest and most prominent orthodox members of the church in the media treat the pope like a party leader and are so quick with clever-dick rationalizations of the massive changes to the practice of the Faith over the past 50 years, why should they be surprised that the world conceives of the doctrines and dogmas of the Faith as mere party planks or mutable policy, to be exchanged, updated, or abandoned as the times change?

And why should they be surprised that even their co-religionists fail to understand the Faith? In truth, the most salient fact of contemporary Catholic life in the West is the way it is pervaded by the pattern of saying things and then acting as if something else were true.

Catholic parishes teach their catechumens that people must be absolved from their mortal sins in sacramental confession before presenting themselves for Holy Communion, yet priests serve communion to packed churches just hours after tiny lines for confession. They say one thing, but act another way. Catholics teach that the Holy Eucharist becomes the body and blood of their Lord, yet the ad-hoc nature of their revised liturgy, the disappearance of genuflection as a Catholic gesture (it's now Tebowing!), and the behavior of priests and extraordinary ministers says that we are as unmoved by consecrated host as Pentecostals.

And the debate that Pope Francis' Lisbona affair sparked about letting divorced and "remarried" Catholics partake in Holy Communion would be yet another instance of saying one thing and acting as if the opposite were true.

Catholics say that a valid marriage is indissoluble and that a civilly remarried person is living in adultery. The church requires anyone who sins mortally to abstain from Holy Communion until they repent and receive absolution for their sins. How can the church say these things and allow those she deems in adultery to the communion rail, while demanding that those who merely missed one Sunday Mass through their own fault deny themselves this same salve for the soul? How can the church even explain the English Reformation if somewhere, hidden in its own tradition, is the ability to tolerate adulterous marriages? How could the church possibly honor the English martyrs like St. Thomas More if they died for mere "policy," and not a truth about the sacraments?

And yet, Catholics conditioned by the last 50 years of life in the church are totally unprepared for the eventuality of the pope or a papally approved Synod (i.e., a governing council) issuing a "policy" that flatly contradicts church teaching. For many of them, many good men, it will just be a new party line. Or perhaps, more insanely, they will claim, in an Orwellian turn, that the new policy was always the church's real policy.

The Catholic Party has cultivated a very specific form of forgetting of the church's confounding history. They do not recall that ecumenical councils like the one at Vienne wasted church authority on a silly grudge against the Knights Templar. They do not remember Councils like those at Sirmium, later condemned, where churchmen made compromises with Arianism. They do not remember that Pope Pius VI encouraged a Synod in Italy that eventually promoted Jansenist heresy, condemned much Catholic piety, and improvised new liturgies.

Catholics were reminded at the Second Vatican Council of a doctrine with a foundation in the early church fathers, in St. Vincent Lerins, that the whole body of faithful Catholics in their cultivated sense of the faith, are one of the guarantors of the church's teaching authority. Sometimes, the duty of a faithful Catholic is not just to rebuke and correct those in authority in the church like St. Catherine of Siena, but to throw rotting cabbage at them, or make them miserable, as we once did, with the connivance of worldly authorities, during the deadlocked papal election in Viterbo.

For now the members of the Catholic Party are cultivating a kind of denial, saying that Pope Francis cannot possibly endorse the line on divorce and remarriage suggested by Cardinal Kasper when very clearly this reform is being actively debated within the highest reaches of the church, and seems to have been implemented in one phone call. If adopted, it will be time for members of the Catholic Church to reach for the rotting produce and give our prelates a taste of the sensus fidelium.

A Catholic must measure everything they see and hear, regardless of where it comes from, by comparing it to the Catholic faith, which naturally includes scripture as that is a crucial part of the Tradition of the Church. But, ultimately, we are called to look at the entire history of the Church and all that she has pronounced, not just the most recent comments. That is the problem with so much we see and hear today. It is all about looking at the Church as only being governed and informed by one Church Council, and the most recent popes. Not so at all. As a matter of fact, real Catholic faith rests in seeing and hearing all of these recent events and teachings as being limited and constrained by all that came before and has been believed from the beginning. Without that we would be no different than any reformed church which moves with the whims of their leaders. Popes are Catholic not because they define Catholicism, but because they are defined by it.

LOL, it's not nearly that simple. While Catholics might be "called to look at the entire history of the Church and all that she has pronounced," it is a matter of Catholic doctrine that the ultimate interpretation of those issues resides with the Church, and not the laity. So Catholics can research, study, and opine all they want - but when the Church pronounces doctrine, that's it - and the pronouncement of that doctrine is headed by the Pope. Bluntly put, no matter what a Catholic believes, to remain Catholic is to obey the Pope. It is not a democracy.

IB4TPWMA

So Catholics can research, study, and opine all they want - but when the Church pronounces doctrine, that's it - and the pronouncement of that doctrine is headed by the Pope. Bluntly put, no matter what a Catholic believes, to remain Catholic is to obey the Pope. It is not a democracy.

There are several problems with what you say. One is it is not internally consistent. You are right when you say we must "obey the Pope" but obedience is not the same as saying that all opinions regarding theology that a person has must automatically be correct, even if they contradict what has always been believed by the Church. My children must obey me, but that does not mean that I am always right.

Also, to use your phrase, it is just not that simple. Church teaching is not just a declaration to be regurgitated endlessly without any understanding. And, if any Church teaching is to be understood then the hearer must look not just to what has just been said, but to all that it builds on. This is because Catholicism, even more than most other such belief structures, is one of tradition. The Church never teaches without placing it in the context of the historic faith which she has received. If a pope expounds on salvation outside of the Church, for instance, he does so by looking to the historic and constant teaching of the Church, and it is by placing any teaching into this framework that the hearer can properly understand it and act on it. This is what Pope Benedict XVI called a hermeneutic of continuity rather than rupture.

Just look at this thread. People are arguing that it is not possible to disagree with the theological opinions of a pope without ceasing to be Catholic. Is that a Catholic teaching? No, and it never has been. It is the opinion of people who are threatened, for whatever reason, with the possibility that a pope may not be 100% right at all times whatsoever. Perpetual personal papal infallibility is not a teaching of the Church, and yet it comes up over and over again. Why? Because people have no grasp of the historical teachings of the Church. So who is promoting democracy of faith? Those who ignorantly promote these false ideas which have never been part of the faith, or those who know what the Church has always taught and remain faithful to it?

The problem is that you are arguing as if laity opinion is equal to the clergy’s decisions and teachings, and within the Catholic Church, they are not.

That’s why it’s simple, within its complexity. Whatever the laity believes or decides for whatever reasons, they are simply not authorized to decide upon doctrine. They are issued doctrine, and expected to study, understand and obey it. There is a very strict hierarchical division between laity and clergy in Catholicism, and this is the underlying dynamic in this entire issue. Under the guise of research and learning, an implicit claim of authority is being made by (mostly) American Catholics to decide doctrine. This claim of laity authority, implicit or not, quite simply, is not valid within the Catholic Church.

Laity can offer their understandings to the clergy, yes. But the doctrine of the Church is that the clergy will review any such understandings and issue a pronouncement of either conformity and acceptance, or error and correction. And the flow of power is one way - from the top down.

I understand that a lot of people don’t like this situation, especially Americans who grew up with ideas of freedom and democracy. But the Catholic Church is also a vehicle of penance, of spiritual humility and obedience. And it will never, ever surrender its claim to absolute authority in matters it deems its jurisdiction and under its auspices of control. Because without that it would not longer be the Catholic Church.

It’s not the middle ages. If people don’t like it, they can leave. But people who want to stay in the Church in order to challenge its teachings have motives ulterior to being “good Catholics.” The presumption of the Church is that the clergy are more learned and particularly blessed to interpret the true doctrines of Jesus Christ. Accepting that authority is what it means to be Catholic.

There can be (and have been) bad popes and the theoretical possibility exists that a given pope is not a legitimate occupant of the See. One would not want to blindly obey either of these.

I agree. That's one of the reasons I'm not Catholic.

But for those who choose to be Catholics, that choice includes obedience. And from the Catholic Church's point of view, IF "a given pope is not a legitimate occupant of the See," the clergy will let the laity know, and what to do about it. Otherwise, it is the role of the laity to obey - period. And because the clergy is watching over them, the Catholic Church does not consider this "blind obedience," but rather humility, discipline and obedience before God.

It ain't a democracy, and it doesn't pretend to be.

There are good monarchs and bad monarchs.

That doesn't mean that one can opt out of being a subject. Of course, you can honorably choose to be a subject in exile, or whatever.

There are Christians who are happy with the Pope. There are those who are not happy with any Pope. The Pope cannot tell you you are not a Christian. And vice versa.

In any family with a lot of children, there are always children who are not talking to, never mind obeying, father or mother. Doesn't mean they are not family.

The above is where this present, very radical Pope may be trying to come from. Meet him in Heaven.

And from the Catholic Church's point of view, IF "a given pope is not a legitimate occupant of the See," the clergy will let the laity know, and what to do about it. Otherwise, it is the role of the laity to obey - period.

Except that after Vatican I, there is no mechanism for the clergy to declare a Pope in error. It used to be the Cardinals or the University of Paris had some say, but that is gone now.

So if the Pope declares that divorce and remarriage is no ok, Catholic's pretty much have to pretend it was always ok.

So if the Pope declares that divorce and remarriage is no ok, Catholic's pretty much have to pretend it was always ok.

That would be to deny Christ, which is not within the purview of any man, including the pope.

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"Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. [7] They say to him: Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce, and to put away? [8] He saith to them: Because Moses by reason of the hardness of your heart permitted you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. [9] And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery. [10] His disciples say unto him: If the case of a man with his wife be so, it is not expedient to marry.

[9] Except it be: In the case of fornication, that is, of adultery, the wife may be put away: but even then the husband cannot marry another as long as the wife is living."

http://www.drbo.org/chapter/47019.htm

85 "The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ."47 This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.

86 "Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith."48

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a2.htm

Except that isn’t how Catholicism works.

If the Pope says it, you have to follow it. There is little choice if you wish to remain Catholic. That is the great strength, and the great weakness, of Catholicism. It becomes a situation where you have to follow the Pope.

In the Catholic religion, he is the Vicar of Christ. In other words, he is the King’s representative. He may be wrong, but in the old Imperial Roman law, you HAVE to do what he says. No matter what. There was no appeal process once the vicar (or regent) has spoken other than to wait for the real King/Emperor to return.

One would have to define "edict."

The level of authority behind any papal statement--- whether it's something as weighty as an Apostolic Constitution of Encyclical, or something as everyday as a weekday Homily from Domus Sta. Martae or remarks at a Papal Audience --- depends on the teaching's dogmatic history, and the intention of the pope.

Not everything the pope says is an "edict." Not even everything he says in an encyclical is an "edict."

Fortunately, in the history of the Church, when we have had really bad popes (8 or 9 of them, really wicked, by my quick and inexpert count) they were generally not interested in doctrine. That is to say, the truly criminal and startlingly crappy popes were interested in raiding their neighbor's castles, embezzling revenue, selling benefices, coddling their mistresses, and ennobling their nonmarital offspring.

We have NOT had bad popes --- so far! ---who were "into" heretical theology, just damned filthy conduct. For which, Deo gratias.

"Foundational to this article is the concept that a Catholic could hold a theological opinion that differs from the Pope."

This concept is not in opposition to Catholic teaching. A pope may hold theological opinions which are debatable or even erroneous. What matters is not whether he "holds" these opinions, but (1)whether they are heretical (not just questionable) and (2) whether he intends to impose them on the Church with the full authority of his office.

Francis is our 266th pope. It is unreasonable to suppose that ALL the theological "opinions" of ALL the previous popes were or are considered normative for the whole Church. That's simply impossible.

Otherwise, it is the role of the laity to obey - period.

It has never been mandatory to obey anything that endangers your faith.

IF "a given pope is not a legitimate occupant of the See," the clergy will let the laity know

Except that a great number of the clergy would be expected to take the wrong side. Reference "bishop against bishop" prophecies.

Except that isn’t how Catholicism works. If the Pope says it, you have to follow it. There is little choice if you wish to remain Catholic.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI):

"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."

http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bishops/04-07ratzingerommunion.htm

I saw this good comment by Arthur MccGowan on a different thread, and I'm taking the liberty of posting this here, as my (borrowed) contribution to good Catholic sense:

"Popes do not issue marching orders daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly. No person who is well-instructed in the Catholic Faith, and is sincerely practicing it, needs to follow the Pope’s doings and sayings. A Catholic is at liberty to like or dislike any Pope.
"If he dislikes a Pope, he should try to remain unaware of the day-to-day news about the Pope. The notion that all Catholics must “heed the call” of the Pope to conversion, or spiritual renewal or growth, etc., and must therefore read all of the Pope’s interviews and daily homilies, is silly. The call to all those good things is in Scripture and the constant teaching of the Church."

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