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.

Interesting article in that it creates a number of arguments that are in opposition to much of the Catholic teachings. Foundational to this article is the concept that a Catholic could hold a theological opinion that differs from the Pope. In addition, that the Catholic would be motivated by their moral code to then resist or oppose the Pope. This would be a direct opposition to the belief that the Church has primary authority and would presuppose that the individual has the moral obligation to judge the morality of the current ecclesiastical teachings.

I would ask a challenge question in response. If one is to oppose the Pope, then where would they go to seek guidance of their moral code? I therefore postulate that the scriptures would be the primary means of guidance, in that anything taught by the Pope would have to align with scripture in order to be accepted as “right”. IOW, prima scriptura (scripture is the first and foremost authority)

Slippery slope on both sides here. Too bad the author did not admit his biases. For all its faults (and I believe they are many) the Catholic Church still provides a bastion of sanity and spirituality for a billion people. I have little respect for those who would seek to undermine that foundation - just as I would reject those who would pervert it from within.

We live in difficult times. More patience, prayer, study and contemplation is needed, and less reactionary efforts, if peace is to be maintained.

Not to say that corrections shouldn’t be made where necessary. But humility on both sides, as well as strict honesty, is crucial.

The current Pope may be a little out of line and think of himself as JPII did - a rock star - which was of little help to the Church until Cdl Ratzinger (BXVI) took over the theological part of the reign of JPII.

Pope Francis has been good on many things, vague and easily misinterpreted on others, and probably reluctant to come across as a “heavy” and state the Church’s position on yet others. I think he’s quite orthodox, but he’s just a 1980’s kind of guy, unfortunately.

Oddly enough, BXVI, who was older than Francis, came across as much younger and more attuned to modern realities, IMHO. But not everybody would see it this way, and that’s why the Holy Spirit intervenes. What we have is what we’ve got.

Interesting article in that it creates a number of arguments that are in opposition to much of the Catholic teachings. Foundational to this article is the concept that a Catholic could hold a theological opinion that differs from the Pope.

Sorry, but it is most certainly not "in opposition to ... Catholic teaching" that a Catholic could hold a theologial opinion which differs from a pope. Only in cases where the Pope's opinion is, in fact, Catholic will this above hold true. But, if one should teach something less than orthodox, like say suggesting that atheism saves and that Catholics should encourage atheists to be more devoted in their atheism, then any real Catholic will certainly hold theological opinions which differ from his.

At its most extreme the Church has only ever held that a pope is infallible, i.e. totally free from any theological error, in very, very specific cases. Only twice since Vatican I has this ever undeniably happened, and yet how many "theological opinions" have all the popes since then had? Were they all perfectly orthodox throughout those times? We certainly have no authority to require us to believe that they were never wrong about theological ideas during those years, and it goes beyond good sense to suggest as much. To argue for that, as many seem to in defending every utterance of every pope, is to go far beyond what the Church teaches, and that means to leave orthodoxy. Popes can be wrong, and when they are we should disagree with them. If we don't then we are wrong too, and that is never a virtue.

Foundational to this article is the concept that a Catholic could hold a theological opinion that differs from the Pope. In addition, that the Catholic would be motivated by their moral code to then resist or oppose the Pope. This would be a direct opposition to the belief that the Church has primary authority and would presuppose that the individual has the moral obligation to judge the morality of the current ecclesiastical teachings.

The concept is Biblical: "But when Cephas was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed." Catholics are under no obligation to kiss Korans, put beachballs on altars or attend prayer gatherings with the Great Thumb, despite the fact that Popes have done these things. Only God is infallible; Popes are human and make mistakes.

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"The scope of papal infallibility is the same as any other organ of infallibility of the Church (such as an ecumenical council): it is limited to doctrinal definitions or final definitive statements concerning faith or morals. Theologians distinguish between primary and secondary objects of infallibility. The primary object consists of the truths that have been formally revealed by God, being contained within the two sources of revelation, namely, Scripture and Tradition, and extends to both positive and negative decisions of a definitive nature. Positive decisions include such things as dogmatic decrees of a council, ex cathedra statements from a pope, and official creeds of the Church. Negative decisions consist of “the determination and rejection of such errors as are opposed to the teaching of Revelation”. (3) The secondary object of infallibility includes those matters which, although not formally revealed, are connected with and intimately related to the revealed deposit, such as theological conclusions (inferences deduced from two premises, one of which is revealed and the other verified by reason) and dogmatic facts (contingent historical facts). These are so closely related to revealed truths that they are said to be virtually contained within the revealed deposit. With varying degrees of certitude, theologians also list universal disciplines and the canonizations of saints within this category. Secondary objects “come within the purview of infallibility, not by their very nature, but rather by reason of the revealed truth to which they are annexed. As a result, infallibility embraces them only secondarily. It follows that when the Church passes judgment on matters of this sort, it is infallible only insofar as they are connected with revelation”."

http://thecatholicfaith.blogspot.com/2012/11/papal-infallibility-and-its-limitations.html

Not being Catholic myself, I will certainly admit that my perceptions may be in error. However, my perceptions are based on the following:

Vatican II (Lumen Gentium 25)
Vatican II explained the doctrine of infallibility as follows: “Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, they can nevertheless proclaim Christ’s doctrine infallibly....

Catechism 882
The Pope, Bishop of Rome and Peter’s successor, “is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful. For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.”

Based on these (and other writings) it appears to me that Papal supremacy is the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. Further, that the pope, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ and as pastor of the entire Christian Church, has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered. This would include the power of interpretation of scripture and dominion over canon law.

The point of my question is to call out that when Popes are wrong, what other than scripture, would a Catholic use to even measure that the Pope is wrong. This then goes to support prima scriptura.

I understand. I was baptized and confirmed Catholic. But I should be excommunicated. I'll go away now.

So was I. And what I learned is that Catholicism is Catholicism. I was free to leave, and I did, because I could not give obedience to Catholic teachings in their entirety.

It's not a democracy. If you're not a Catholic, you're not a Catholic. Railing against it is pointless, as is trying to change it. There are plenty of Protestant churches that don't follow the Pope. Catholics follow the Pope. Catholics who want to change the church are political operatives, not Catholics.

Excommunication is unnecessary drama unless you intend to attack the Church, in which case it is used by the Church to defend itself from you. Just follow what you believe, and let others do the same. Face it, no matter what you choose to believe, over half the world will think you're going to hell for it. So it's courage of your convictions - or liberalism. I choose the former.

Based on these (and other writings) it appears to me that Papal supremacy is the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.

Absolutely, but please keep in mind that this is not the same as saying that every theological opinion he holds must be the one all people hold. He is as capable of being wrong as anyone, on a personal level, and that means that well informed and sincere Catholics can, and sometimes must, disagree with him. Supremacy is a juridical issue, and does not confer on the Pope personal impeccability and constant infallibility.

This would include the power of interpretation of scripture and dominion over canon law.

Yes, to a point. But, a pope cannot contradict the faith of the Church, which existed before him and will exist after him. He is only empowered by God to protect what he has received, not to change it or recreate it. If a Pope rejects the historic Catholic faith he has moved outside of the faith. The faith does not move along with him. He is just wrong in that instance.

The point of my question is to call out that when Popes are wrong, what other than scripture, would a Catholic use to even measure that the Pope is wrong. This then goes to support prima scriptura.

No, not at all. 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.

In my checquered "career," I have long noted that Roman Catholics who belong to ethnic groups not formerly subjected to long terms in papal prisons tend to be somewhat more enthusiastic in their support for the Bishop of Rome than others, whose families were not so fortunate as to be geographically removed from the Inquisition, etc.

It is also interesting that the Pope took the name "Francis." St. Francis preached and practiced absolute poverty. However, let us note that at the time of his death, the Order he founded owned about 20% of the real estate in the wealthiest provinces of Northern Italy.

This is the continual dichotomy of the papacy. Christ's Vicar on Earth is also the head of a huge business enterprise. I am not horrified by this, but it does cause one to take the words of the Supreme Pontiff cum grano salis.

Every Christian denomination has the same problem: Spiritual vs Organizational. What the present Pope may be trying to do is identify his problems with the problems of every other churchman. Of course, he is a committed Christian Socialist. That is, he wants Christians to have all of the supposed benefits of Marxism, but in a nice Christian way. (See the works of Pius IX. He talked a socialist game, but ran some mighty tough jails!)

But theologically, the guy is somewhat more inclusive than your average Pope. After all, when the Muhammedans come to kill, tax, or convert us, they care not who is the Roman Catholic, the Orthodox, The Anglican, The Calvinist, or the Lutheran.

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"Resistance is futile."