Posted on 05/06/2014 6:00:33 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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?
Of course, it cannot.
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.
I actually know the quote.
And to be honest (as I suspect you know) it isn’t that way in the trenches. I know of people who got in a lot of hot water with their priest over the Iraq war because of statements made by the Pope.
Also, those topics aren’t the same as what is being talked about here. A better example (if not remarriage and receiving communion) would be if a Pope came out and said that abortion is ok in situations where there was not a clear and present danger to the life of the mother. The Catholic church as pretty much always been against abortion (and remarriage after divorce). It has not always been against capital punishment.
“Bishop against Bishop” prophecy?
If you could be so kind, what one was that? (Honestly just curious).
As I said, I personally agree with you. It's just that Catholics are by definition cut off from being arbiters of determining what is endangering their faith, if the subject is the Catholic Church itself. In fact, such people are mocked as "cafeteria Catholics," among other things - including, traditionally, "heretics."
Except that a great number of the clergy would be expected to take the wrong side. Reference "bishop against bishop" prophecies.
Yep.
"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."
Arthur MccGowan believes this, and obviously you believe this.
But does the Pope believe it?
And if he doesn't, where is your authority as a Catholic to disagree with the Pope? As a human being, sure. But as a Catholic? I see no authority at all.
I offered that quote as an illustration of the principle rather than the particulars. The bottom line is that Catholics may legitimately differ with a pope on some theological matters, since “not all moral issues have the same moral weight”.
The Pope, like everyone else, is subject to Divine Law (upon which the consistent teachings of the Church are based). If a pope suddenly announced that abortion is permissible, he would be condoning murder, a mortal sin, and thus would excommunicate himself latae sententiae.
The Church has never taught that the Pope is an all-purpose oracle. The level of authority behind any papal statement--- whether it's something as weighty as an Apostolic Constitution or an Encyclical, or something as mundane 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". Sometimes it's just a pastoral reflection, sometimes a passing opinion, sometimes even an off-balance, fragmentary and garbled verbal output worthy of "edit" or "delete".
I think Francis would be the first one to admit this. One of the men he just canonized, St. Pope John XXIII, once said, "I am only infallible if I speak infallibly but I shall never do that, so I am not infallible".
I love pope who can handle a nimble tautology.
It really is unfortunate that so many modern Catholics have so lost their way and adopted these very uncatholic notions as factual. And it is in great measure because they do not look to their own history, and no longer see it around them. There are, however, still examples of the real Catholic approach to be found out there. The Franciscans are such, and in that order there is no authoritative distinction between priests and non-clerical brothers. They do not allow priests in their orders to even distinguish themselves from the other brothers in any outward way. When meeting Franciscans you would never know whether one is a cleric or not. And Franciscan priests must be obedient to the authority of their superior who may not be a cleric himself.
At one time this was not unusual in the Church in terms of teaching and spiritual development. Religious brothers and sisters were given their appropriate reverence and respect, and it was never suggested that somehow they would be more authoritative as teachers if they were priests. Abbots were ordinaries of their communities, and likewise Abbesses were of immense authority and influence, though they could obviously never be clerics. And the Desert Fathers were by and large not clergy and yet their teachings have come down to us as anything but of a second class nature. But, now, people push their clericalism and tell us it is not only requisite, but even sometimes go so far, as you have, to claim it is what actually makes us Catholic. Not even close. We are Catholic because we hold the Catholic faith, whole and entire, and that has nothing to do with being ordained. Arius, the arch heretic, was a priest. I promise you that any orthodox Catholic lay person's opinion was of more value and authority than were his.
Actually what I am addressing is who gets to determine the difference. It is my understanding that the Catholic laity is not authorized to make such decisions, and that they are told by the clergy what the applicablelevel of authority and interpretation of any Church teaching, or Papal action or statement, is. So in a functional sense it doesn't really matter what the laity thinks of the difference between Papal opinion and magisterium, because they don't have the authority to implement their decisions on the subjects.
As you say, the laity can “make their views known” to the clergy. They cannot, however, follow their conscience. For after making their views known (which presumably represent their consciences), they must receive a judgement or teaching or instruction regarding them, and then obey them - despite what they might still believe on their own.
I’m not slighting it, I’m just acknowleging it. Catholicism is based on obedience to Papal and Clergy authority, and the laity is simply not authorized to make decisions about their own faith. Opinions are one thing, obedience is another. Catholics accept this state of affairs as central to their Catholicism. I’m just noting its existence. And I’m also noting the difference between a non-Catholic and a Catholic having opinions about doctrine - the former follows their own opinions, the latter cannot. So there is a fundamental, yet unacknowledged difference between the two in the use of the concept of “opinion.”
As for Catherine of Siena and Thomas Aquinas instructing the Church, you’ll note they are Saints. There are many in the history of the Church who also sought to instruct the Church who were not acknowledged as Saints, and thus were excommunicated, burned, or otherwise erased. I’dd say that’s a pretty high bar for insisting on one’s own opinion as a Catholic, and not very supportive of an argument that Catholics are free to follow their own minds.
“Except that isn’t how Catholicism works. If the Pope says it, you have to follow it.”
Others have already taken issue with this. I just want to add my “Sorry, but that’s not correct at all. Not even a little.”
“This would be a direct opposition to the belief that the Church has primary authority”
What century are we talking about, here? I have always been taught that God has primary authority, and that the Bible is His word.
“and would presuppose that the individual has the moral obligation to judge the morality of the current ecclesiastical teachings.”
Well, yeah. The Church holds that God gave us reason so that we could use it.
“I would ask a challenge question in response.”
Asked and answered.
Prima scriptura (scripture is the first and foremost authority).
Catholicism is based on obedience to Papal and Clergy authority, and the laity is simply not authorized to make decisions about their own faith.
I get the distinct impression you aren't Catholic. Am I right? No Catholic would say or believe this. It is not what "Catholicism is based on" and isn't even a part of our ethos. This strikes me as some outsider's prejudiced assumption about what we do and believe.
Opinions are one thing, obedience is another.
In this you are right. Which is why it is so strange that you keep talking about obedience when I have been discussing opinions.
Catholics accept this state of affairs as central to their Catholicism.
No, we do not accept anything like what you are describing as central to anything. I promise you that. No Catholic I have ever known in my life would accede to the strange notions you have laid out as being what they practise. Not even close.
As for Catherine of Siena and Thomas Aquinas instructing the Church, you’ll note they are Saints.
Exactly, and when were they given that honor? Was it at birth so that they could behave in ways that, you say, the Church does not allow? What a strange idea, and also entirely not one which could ever be confused with Catholicism. But, no, that is not how it has happened. They were just Catholics during their life, but were then recognized as saints specifically because they lived lives worthy of recognition. In other words, they were thoroughly Catholic and models of behaviour, not aberrations as you seem to think. And, even more to the point, St. Thomas Aquinas was a teacher and what I referred to was something he taught others in the Church, and that teaching is held up by the Church as definitive.
There are many in the history of the Church who also sought to instruct the Church who were not acknowledged as Saints, and thus were excommunicated, burned, or otherwise erased.
Oh yeah, you aren't Catholic. This is just Dan Brown fiction. None of what you are arguing is true. The Church is founded on truth, not power. Your model is one of force, but that is just what you want to believe. The Church teaches the true faith, and has done so from the beginning. It calls the faithful, all the faithful, to live according to the truth and to instruct the ignorant wherever or whoever they may be. Your notions are as foreign to us as the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Thank you for that clear explanation; now I understand your point, and it's an important one.
The infallibility manifested (on rare occasions) by a pope is not really the "Pope's infallibility" (as if it were a personal characteristic) but rather the Church's infallibility being exercised in its --- by far --- least common instance.
As the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Vat II) expresses it, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God, which is entrusted to the Church. The papal (or conciliar or episcopal) magisterium depends on this, since anything "divinely revealed" has to be derived from what was handed on to us by the Apostles.
So there's a 2,000 year record out there for all to see, which shows what we are convinced has been derived from this Apostolic (not solely papal) authority. And also out there for all to see, is 2,000 years of conversation, sometimes serene, sometimes contentious, about the extent and limits of what can be derived from this single source (the Apostles' teaching.)
We apply what Pope Benedict XVI called the "Hermeneutic of Continuity" --- we're looking for those teachings which are directly taught or reasonably inferred (maybe, logically demanded) from the faith of the whole Church from the earliest centuries, as knowable from writings as well as from practice, e.g. Sacred Liturgy.
Realize that every person in the Church has the authority, and of course the duty, to "Obey God rather than men."
So, cut to the chase, how would I, non-cleric, non-scholar, pew-sitter Catholic, react if the pope, professing some level of authority, proclaimed something that was a departure, a rupture, from what we know Christ taught us through the Church an ages past? What if he said Jesus Christ is not God; or man is but a brute, a mutant ape; or Christian marriage makes no durable bond; or intentionally killing an innocent human being is not murder? (My husband and I have discussed this)
I would conclude one of the following:
Under no circumstances (God aiding me) would I conclude that this deranged papal pronouncement was an authoritative teaching--- no, not even if every bishop in the world concurred with it.
Of interest: John Henry Newman's "Development of Doctrine," which invokes internal consistency/continuity as the way to tell true development from either corruption or innovation.
For your amusement and edification: How to Explain Papal Infallibility in Two Minutes (YouTube Link)
If one reads the encyclicals of previous Popes, one finds that they are based upon previous Popes’ encyclicals, i.e., Church teaching is strengthened, confirmed, and further clarified (not changed). Pope St. Pius X wrote in 1907 in his encyclical “Pascendi Dominici Gregis” about the heresy of Modernism, which he described as “the synthesis of all heresies.” It has seeped into the Church and now we see that statements of the current Pope are not building upon statements of previous Popes, i.e., they are at odds. The key idea of Modernism is “that may be true for you, but it isn’t for me,” leading to the thought, “if everything is true and nothing is false, then who am I to judge,” ergo, “all beliefs lead to salvation.” One has only to read the writings of previous Popes to know that this one hasn’t.
I certainly agree that it is necessary for Catholics, all Catholics, to look to the history of Church teaching and thought for context and constraint rather than simply taking some new instruction or clarification entirely on its own. So many people seem eager and ready to do this these days, and we see it when we hear discussions about how the pope should change this or that teaching. That demonstrates a complete failure to consider the reality of doctrine. It just isn’t a Catholic way of looking at it.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply, and your explanation of the historical continuity of Catholic teachings.
Concerning your theoretical example of being challenged by a Papal teaching which you simply could not accept, even if it was supported by bishops, what then? Do you become, at that moment, apostate in the eyes of the Church? A heretic if you still insist on being a Catholic?
It is my understanding that that is exactly what would happen under such conditions. And it would happen because the Church does not accept your authority to disagree with its teachings.
While I am pleased for you that this has not occurred for you, I do point out that it has occurred for many. That’s why I remind people that the Church is not a democracy. This often makes Catholics angry or offended or defensive, they feel provoked. But there are no reasons for such feelings. Catholicism is a discipline, and always has been. Even Pope Benedict said he would rather see a smaller Church that conformed strictly to the teachings.
I left the Church for my own reasons, but I don’t hate the Church. Rather (and in my personal opinion, of course), I believe that there are many paths to God, and that God chooses certain people for the discipline of Catholicism.
Thus I also believe that the broad application of Catholicism is a mistake. I simply don’t think it can be achieved without fundamentally changing the Church. And I think that’s why there are so many “cafeteria Catholics” these days. Personally, I could not morally choose that route.
Your rejection of the obligation of Catholics to obey the teachings of the Church over their own personal spiritual opinions demonstrates a level of ignorance about your religion that is to low for me to continue a discussion with you on this subject.
Thanks for playing. Have a nice day.
Based on whose interpretation of the scriptures?
That's the whole point isn't it?
Yes, that is the exactly my point.
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