Criticizing Pope John Paul II

That Pope John Paul II should get a barrage of criticism from modernists is only to be expected. But he also comes in for unsparing criticism from so-called traditionalists; and that is what I want to discuss here.

It is not that they recognize his great achievements, but think that an occasional statement or practical decision is wrong. The people I am referring to seem to go through papal statements in search of errors and scrutinize the Pope’s activities for inappropriate or imprudent actions.

Here is a man who has fearlessly and devotedly promoted the truth for almost a quarter of a century as Vicar of Christ, who despite illnesses in recent years that would have forced most people into retirement has kept up a pace most fit individuals half his age would find daunting. He draws crowds of millions; he is listened to by young people all over the world. He is today’s great outstanding moral teacher, and seen as such by multitudes, including those of other faiths or none.

Ignoring all this, the critics I am speaking of look for anything they can regard as a weakness or error, then publicly condemn it. Even if they were right about the matters complained of, they would be wrong in the lack of balance shown. But that lack of balance should alert us to the bias with which they approach John Paul, and warn us that their alleged statements of fact may be nothing of the sort.

Take criticisms of the gathering of religions at Assisi, organized by the Pope. Horror is expressed at his alleged encouragement of Hindus, Buddhists, and others to pray to pagan gods. But that is not what he did. Certainly he encouraged them to pray. God is open to all sincere prayer, even though those praying may have confused and erroneous notions of who God is. Nor did the Pope join in prayer with them, as is sometimes insinuated. The groups prayed separately.

John Paul is also charged with contradicting his Predecessors on the place of St. Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy. He is supposed to have implied, in his encyclical Faith and Reason (n. 49), that the Church has no preferred philosophy. This would contradict previous Popes, including Pius XI’s statement in Studiorum Ducem, that "as innumerable documents of every kind attest, the Church has adopted his [St.
Thomas’] philosophy as her own" (AAS 15 [1923], 314).

In fact, John Paul’s sentence is badly translated in the English version of Faith and Reason. The encyclical highly praises St. Thomas in several places, including an endorsement of Leo XIII’s "insistence upon the incomparable value of the philosophy of St. Thomas" (n. 57).

The Pope is also taken to task for saying, in his general audience of July 28, 1999, that Hell is not a place. But what he actually said is that Hell is "more than a place." (This is pointed out in a "Faith Fact" published by Catholics United for the Faith, and quoted by James Drummey in his Wanderer column, Catholic Replies.) The English translation of the Pope’s address rendered the Italian as "rather than a place," instead of the accurate "more than a place."

Even had he said it is not a place, surely he should be understood to be highlighting what it is essentially (and the same applies to his similar remarks about Heaven). Instead the carping critics seize on sentences without regard for the context, don’t trouble to check the original, then complain that the Pope is wrong.

What is the right approach if the Pope seems to be wrong? Well, first one must get the facts straight. In the case of a happening, such as the Assisi meetings of religions, what did he actually do and say? What was the intention of the gathering? Regarding statements that seem inaccurate, is the fault in the translation? Does the context throw light on the meaning?

Secondly, a clear distinction must be made between doctrine and practices. The influence of the Holy Spirit in preventing the Pope from teaching error in faith or morals is in a different category from the help given him in practical decisions. There is no guarantee that he will act in the best way when dealing with administrative matters or in practical decisions relating to ecumenical activities or in dealing with dissident theologians. In these areas mistakes may occur due to inadequate information, personal psychological weaknesses of the Pope, and other causes.

A good example, in my opinion, is the way Paul VI handled (or failed to handle) the controversy about contraception. There was never any possibility of the traditional doctrine being reversed, yet Paul VI took several years to make his definitive statement, and in the meantime left the impression that a change might be imminent. After his clear and beautiful teaching in Humanae Vitae, he rarely referred to the matter again in the remaining ten years of his pontificate, and failed to act decisively against the multitude of dissenters who rebelled against him.

Should we, then, feel free to criticize the Pope in his practical procedures regarding such things as ecumenical approaches or tolerance of unorthodox theologians? While these matters are clearly in a different category from teachings on faith and morals, and don’t require the same allegiance from us, there is need for great caution before disagreeing.

A point to remember (and which so-called traditionalists often ignore) is that John Paul may be right and his Predecessors wrong on a particular issue of this kind. Also, practical measures that worked in the past may not be effective now because of changed circumstances or a change in the general outlook. Perhaps this would apply in the question of whether the Church should have an index of banned books; possibly it was prudent in the past but would be so blatantly flouted today that it would do more harm than good.

Several factors need to be kept in mind if we are inclined to think we are right and John Paul II is wrong. One is his vast knowledge, derived from a lifetime of varied experiences, including years under Nazism and then Marxism. As Pope he has met and talked to more people, and of more diverse views, than almost anyone else on earth. He has better sources of information than we have.

A second consideration is his evident holiness. While we can’t see into another person’s soul, there is every indication that John Paul is a saint. The spiritual insight of a saint, endowed as he is with supernatural virtue in a high degree and with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, gives him a prudence and wisdom far exceeding what most of us are capable of.

Also, he has the grace of state proper to his high office as Vicar of Christ. This is a divine help appropriate to his vocation. We can be confident, in view of his holiness, that he will not resist that grace.

Putting all that together — almost unparalleled experience, saintly wisdom, a ready response to the grace of state offered him by God — we should be extremely reluctant to suppose we know better than he does what Christ wants for His Church.

There is also the need for us to avoid scandal. Those who complain about the alleged scandal given by the Pope with the Assisi gathering of religions should ask themselves whether they give scandal with their readiness to condemn his actions. Will this stance lead other people to question papal authority? Will it tend to make them skeptical about pronouncements from Rome? Will it encourage them to see Vatican II as a major disaster? Will it weaken the allegiance of young people to the Church?

Finally, the critics I am speaking of should ask themselves whether they, not the Pope, have a warped view. It is so easy for justified concern about the aberrations in Catholic affairs to cause an overreaction, with suspicion of quite legitimate changes. It must never be forgotten that Satan, who loves to provoke division, can appear as an angel of light and lead us astray.

(John Young is a graduate of the Aquinas Academy in Sydney, Australia, and has taught philosophy at the Vincentian Seminary in Eastwood, Australia. He is a frequent contributor to The Wanderer on theological issues.)

A phony claim, made by one theologian who didn't know what he was talking about.

The English translation of the Novus Ordo was produced by the liberal ICEL. Its justification for translating pro multis as "for all men" derives from the curious researches of a LIBERAL Scripture "scholar" whose name is Joachim Jeremias of the University of Gottingen [Germany]. This man is claiming that for the past two thousand years, the words of Our Lord at the Last Supper have been misrepresented in both the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark. Here is what he writes:

"Neither Hebrew nor Aramaic possesses a word for 'all'. The word rabbim or 'multitude' thus served also in the inclusive sense for 'the whole', even though the corresponding Greek and Latin appear to have an exclusive sense, i.e., 'the many' rather than 'the all'." [The Roman Canon in English Translation, New York. 1966. p. 299)

This single theologian is being used by ICEL to support a deliberate mis-translation by ICEL. In point of fact, there are words for "many" and "all" in both Hebrews and in Aramaic. The word Christ would have used for "all" in this Aramaic is: kol, or kolla: the word He would have used for many is: 'saggi'an. So this is a flat-out bit of liberal baloney.

Not only this, but believing what this one professor says would have meant that both Matthew and Mark made the same mistake and mistook Christ's meaning. No one in the Apostolic Church ever caught the mistake and neither did any of the early Church Fathers. In fact, for two thousand years only one theologian has ever claimed anything so bizarre: Joachim Jeremias.

The truth is there never was such a distinction in meaning in any Semitic tongue. Nobody has ever, in the entire history of the Church, believed what you repeat so tiresomely as if it were the truth.

Here is an article for your attention. You both have been pretty loose with the facts lately.

____________________________________________________________
"Pro multis"
Can it mean "for all"?

by Philip Goddard

The International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) translation of "pro multis" in the words of Consecration as "for all" (which has been approved for use throughout the English-speaking world) has probably attracted more controversy than anything else in its English version of the Latin text of the Mass. There is an excellent discussion of the point by Monsignor Gamber, in an addendum to his book "The Reform of the Roman Liturgy", in which he concludes that the ICEL translation is completely unjustifiable. However, this discussion is for the most part confined to the theological considerations, and the linguistic aspect is mentioned only in passing. ICEL itself has published (in the Third Progress Report on the Revision of the Roman Missal) a defence of its translation from the linguistic point of view, and I am not sure that the reasons that were given in that document have ever been rebutted in print. I am not a theologian, and my intention in this brief article is to consider only the linguistic arguments advanced by ICEL and to explain why I think the Commission is wrong.
ICEL claims that the Aramaic and Hebrew words for "many" (saggi’in and rabbim respectively), which it assumes to be the original words underlying the Greek text of the New Testament, have an inclusive sense and can therefore legitimately be rendered in English as "all". This may well be right in principle; I am not familiar with either language and am not therefore in a position to comment. The fact is, however, that in both the gospels where these words occur, those of St. Matthew and St. Mark, they are translated into Greek as p o l l o i (polloi), which means "many", not as p a n t e V (pantes), which means "all". In other words, faced with a possible ambiguity in the Aramaic, both St. Matthew and St. Mark picked the Greek word for "many" and not that for "all". I think it is reasonable to suppose that the evangelists, writing in the second half of the first century, within a few decades of the Last Supper, are likely to have had a better conception of exactly what Our Lord had said and meant to say than the members of ICEL in the second half of the twentieth.

Nobody noticed?

The argument, however, is even stronger than at first appears since the evangelists almost certainly did not translate the words of Consecration directly themselves but used the translations with which they were familiar from the Eucharistic Liturgy in which they regularly participated. These translations go back beyond the evangelists, to the time when the first Gentiles were converted and the existing Aramaic liturgy was translated into Greek for their benefit, which must have happened at most within twenty years of the Resurrection, certainly within the lifetime of the majority of the Apostles. Is it conceivable that Christ’s words were mistranslated at that time, that nobody noticed and that the Church had to wait nineteen centuries for ICEL to put the matter right?

But, says ICEL, the Greek word p o l l o i sometimes means "all". It does not say that it always, or even usually, means "all", which would have been quite unsustainable, since there are numerous instances in the New Testament (to say nothing of the rest of Greek literature) where it cannot possibly mean this. However, so long as it sometimes means all, ICEL believes that it is justified in translating it as "all" in this particular context. We must therefore consider whether ICEL’s arguments that it can sometimes mean "all" are sound or not. I believe that they are not, for the following reasons.

Firstly, ICEL quotes two passages from the letters of St. Paul (Romans 5:19, and Timothy 2:5-6) where it says p o l l o i is used in the sense of "all". In the former passage, however, p o l l o i , in contrast to the Gospel passages, has the definite article before it (‘ o i p o l l o i ), and this completely alters the meaning in Greek from "many people" to "people in general". Romans 5:19 does not therefore support ICEL’s argument. The word used in Timothy 2:5-6 is p a n t e V , which undoubtedly means all, and ICEL says that this is a parallel passage to Mark 10:45, in which the corresponding word is p o l l o i . It concludes that p o l l o i in Mark 10:45 must mean "all". What ICEL has evidently failed to notice however is that its argument is circular; it could just as easily be reversed and used to prove that p a n t e V in Timothy 2:5-6 means "many". So of the only two passages in the New Testament which ICEL can quote in support of its translation, one turns out to be irrelevant and the other circular.

ICEL text is a mistranslation.

Secondly, when the Latin Canon was first composed towards the end of the fourth century as part of the shift in the Church’s liturgical language from Greek to Latin, the Latin words chosen as corresponding to the Greek were "pro multis", not "pro omnibus". The fourth century liturgists clearly did not understand the words in the Greek Canon as meaning "for all". "Pro multis" remains in the Latin Canon to this day, and even the most extreme among the twentieth century liturgical reformers have never suggested either that "pro multis" can possibly mean "for all" or that the text of the Canon should be altered to "pro omnibus". On these grounds alone therefore the ICEL text is a mistranslation of the Latin.

Thirdly, in Liddell and Scott’s standard Greek Lexicon, the article on p o l l o i extends to over two columns of small print and lists many nuances of meaning with extensive quotations from Greek literature to support the corresponding English meanings given. Nowhere, however, in Greek literature do either Liddell and Scott or the many later editors of their Lexicon record any passage where the word bears the meaning "all".

Different and incompatible translations.

Fourthly, the distinguished scholars responsible for the principal modern English translations of the Bible (RSV, Knox, New English, Good News, New International and New Jerusalem) are unanimous in translating the passages in question as "for many" and not as "for all". This, incidentally, has the unfortunate result that on a day when the relevant passage is read at Mass as part of the Gospel (Palm Sunday for instance), we have two different and incompatible translations of the same passage in the same liturgy.

It can only be a matter of speculation why ICEL decided to go for the controversial translation "for all" rather than the safe translation "for many". Its members must have known that it would provoke attitudes ranging from polite disagreement to total outrage. It has been suggested that they may have been influenced by the belief that everyone will be saved, and thereby led to attribute to Christ the words which they would have preferred Him to have said rather than those which He did say. I do not think that this belief has ever been formally condemned as heretical, but it is incompatible with Christ’s teaching as recorded in the New Testament, in particular with His account of the Last Judgement in Matt. 25: 41-46. Unhappily, thanks to ICEL, it is now enshrined in the very heart of the English vernacular Mass.

[Taken from the Latin Mass Society's February 2000 Newsletter.]

If the Cancun "scandal" occurred in the way described, it deserves to be censured. But I doubt it did. The website you referred to was so clearly biased against the Society, I could give it little credence. I'm sure there was a dispute of some sort among churchgoers about Cancun's beaches. But I'm just as sure the tickets weren't intended for them. Cancun is a big place. As for the priest running off with a woman--I think this has been happening in the Church since the beginning of Christianity and hardly merits the term "scandal" these days. The last I noticed, the priest involved hadn't raped any altar boys. Finally, regarding the manslaughter charge against the hapless priest who took three boys out sailing--I am familiar with the incident. It was an accident blown out of proportion by those like you who have an ax to grind, looking for any available incident to use against the SSPX. Yes, it was an imprudent act that led to tragedy--but nothing more.

What is clear is there is no systemic pattern of corruption here as we find in the conciliar Church. There is no elaborate old-boy gay prelature nor a sclerotic Holy See that tolerates it. A priest ran off with a woman; a lottery was protested by some who consider Cancun a sin city rather than a famous vacation spot; a priest had a tragic accident. Big deal. You would need to lack all sense of proportion to compare these events with what's going on in diocese after diocese throughout the conciliar Church where scores of thousands of lives have been ruined by thousands of priests. These priests have preyed on young boys while protected by their well-informed bishops--who have lied publicly and privately to cover up for these multiple degeneracies, not for years, but for decades. And there is clear evidence a gay subculture has dominance in many countries--certainly here and in Canada, in most of Europe and in Australia--in which promotions and favors are granted only to those who play along and are insiders. Billions worldwide, moreover, have been spent in hush money alone. These criminal men have come out of seminaries that have been centers of gay sexual activity and liberal theological dissent. Yet Rome has done nothing to stop any of this--though it has known about the problem for decades.

You need to read the Fr. Shaughnessy analysis of the present corruption in the Catholic Church (published, I believe, in Catholic World Report in May of 2002) to understand what real corruption means. It doesn't mean the absence of all sinfulness--after all, every human institution has a few weak links. His analysis, summarized, is this: all morally healthy institutions have a few corrupt individuals, a majority of go-along types who don't want to stick their necks out, and a heroic few whose presence keeps corruption in check. When the heroic few are missing, the corrupt few take over the institution. That is the present situation in the conciliar Church. It is not the situation, thank God, in SSPX.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.