“We have a papa …”

A couple of weeks ago, in “Has the papacy become ‘just a job’?” I lumped concerns that emeritus Pope Benedict’s resignation had changed the nature of the papacy in with other bits of “silliness inflicted on us by the incessant noisemakers well described as ‘the chattering classes’”. This, I think, goes to show that I can miss the point just as anyone else can.

The basics, I think, are still valid. People who don’t buy into Catholic theology of the papacy, especially the Pope as vicarius Christi, can be found inside the Church as well as outside; you can’t be disillusioned if you don’t have an illusion to begin with. For those of us who do believe it — and to be in communion with the Holy See, you must — what does Benedict’s resignation really change? “The ‘cult of the strong leader’ may suffice for those who hang on to late nineteenth/early twentieth century speculative anthropology.  However, it’s bad history and bad theology, not to mention a total misread of Joe Catholic in the pews.”

That’s the response of the mind. But the heart often discerns truths the mind doesn’t wish to face, and can tell the difference between explaining and explaining away.

Robert Moynihan wrote of an encounter he had with a cardinal before the conclave, a man very troubled in his heart. Said the cardinal, “I love [Benedict], but this should never have happened. He never should have left his office. It is like a man and a woman, a husband and wife, a mother and father in relation to their children. What do they say? They say, ‘until death do us part!’ They stay together always.” And the ineffable Fr. John Zuhlsdorf confessed that he’d been (among other things) angry over the resignation.

I missed it totally. The word “pope” comes from the old Greek papa, “father”. Many people around the world, who know Benedict only though his books and the media, still felt abandoned by their Papa.

The times need to get with the Church — UPDATED

Fox News offered its unique perspective on the coming conclave, with a report entitled “What kind of new pope would America’s Catholics like to see?” I don’t know about you, but I’d be more interested in knowing: “What kind of American Catholics would the new Pope like to see?”

—Phil Lawler, Popular misconceptions IV in CatholicCulture.org, 3/5/13

“Roman Catholics in the United States say that their church and bishops are out of touch, and that the next pope should lead the church in a more modern direction on issues like birth control and ordaining women and married men as priests, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll,” reads the lede in the New York Times.

So okay, the story already has two strikes against it: 1) The poll was conducted by NYT, which is pretty much the closest thing American progressives have to a party organ like Pravda; and 2) the story is co-authored by Laurie Goodstein, who has her own axe — or rather, Jeff Anderson’s axe — to grind. But the sampling methodology looks as though they took reasonable care to get random picks, and I’m satisfied that the numbers reasonably reflect the current state of American Catholics. Here is the link to the full report.

The URL, however, tells the story as well as does the lede, if not better — POLL SHOWS DISCONNECT BETWEEN US CATHOLICS AND CHURCH.

For instance, while between 66% and 79% of American Catholics are in favor of such liberal action items as allowing priests to marry, ordaining women and using contraceptives, only 46% hold that the Pope is not infallible in matters of faith and morals, while another 14% don’t know or didn’t answer. This (seemingly) proves that there are Catholics who disagree with the Pope even though they admit he can’t be wrong, and who follow their consciences in opposition to Church teaching knowing that they can only err in doing so.

Bricks, centipedes and priestly celibacy

Fr. Dwight Longenecker: priest, husband and dad.

Thus the great spoilsman senator, Roscoe P. Conkling: “When [Samuel] Johnson defined patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel, he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word reform.”

The saying, Ecclesia semper reformanda, “The Church is always to be reformed”, is of Protestant coinage but still true and worthy of adoption by Catholics.  The problem is, however, that reformation has always meant different things to different people.

For instance, in an article on NBCNews.com concerning the decline of attendance in Polish churches, Zbigniew Nosowski of the Catholic monthly Wiez “foresees the church accepting a married priesthood this century as a way to counteract the decline in men seeking the priesthood.”

“We will need more priests to fulfill our basic ritual demands — like performance of the Eucharist,” [Nosowski] said.

Some religion writers say the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI could provide an opportunity for other equally bold changes, such as open discussion of birth control, civil unions and in vitro fertilization.

“If we can accept the resignation of a pope, we should be able to accept other big changes,” said Adam Szostkiewicz, a writer for Polityka, a secular liberal magazine. “People here are prepared for deeper changes and a more democratic style of managing things.”

As I’ve said before here, Benedict’s resignation isn’t the game-changer Szostkiewicz and others believe it to be. There are issues the cardinals will speak of when they go into conclave, and doubtless the majority will want a reformer to build on the emeritus pope’s legacy. But they’ll mostly want reform, not innovation. Clerical celibacy gives us a case in point.

Has the papacy become “just a job”?

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve had quite a bit of silliness inflicted on us by the incessant noisemakers well described as “the chattering classes” concerning Pope Benedict’s decision to step down from the papacy.  Yes, I know I belong to that group, and that I’m fully capable of saying silly things too; witness my arrogant confidence that Mitt Romney would beat Barack Obama.

All papal reigns at their start are fraught with promise, and have potential for dramatic acts.  The cardinal electors can’t elect a “caretaker pope” without the possibility that said pope, theoretically picked to keep the Chair of Peter warm for a better successor, will suddenly take it into his head to do something climactic … like call an ecumenical council.  And even a pope widely regarded as an empty cassock (e.g. Ven. Paul VI) can drop an atomic bomb on everyone’s expectations (the prophetic Humanae Vitae).  In this respect, the upcoming conclave is no different from previous conclaves, even with the off-stage presence of a Bishop Emeritus of Rome. 

Those hoping, advising and demanding that the Church change its moral teachings, as I’ve written elsewhere, will most likely grumble of the next pope, in the words of Pete Townsend, “Meet the new boss /Same as the old boss.”  But more irritating than those who expect some kind of dogmatic dive to the left are those who claim that B16’s resignation introduces a fundamental change to the Petrine office, that it either makes or proves the papacy “just another job”.  “And by so doing,” Giles Fraser of the Guardian, who styles himself a “Catholic Protestant”, exults, “it rightly challenges some of the cult of personality that has built up around that office, as if the job affords the office holder some special proximity to God.  It doesn’t.”

Progressives: Don’t hold your breath waiting for Vatican III

What are Ukrainian feminists doing in Paris, anyway?

As is to be expected when the Chair of Peter is vacated, encomiums for the departed pope are quickly replaced by speculation about the next.  This is a game anyone can play, whether you’re Catholic or not.  The only difference now is that the departing pope can read the speculations along with the rest of us.

As is also to be expected, at least since the dual conclaves of 1978, much of the speculation will follow the lines of secular politics, taking absolutely no account of the Catholic Church’s peculiar imperatives.  By that, I mean that you’ll read a lot of silly talk about prospects for the Church changing its “policies” on various action items, as if a change in pope meant a change in doctrine.  That there might be a reason for the Church to teach the same things in 2013 as it did in 1013 or AD 113 seems not to occur to certain people.

One thing that is different from eight years ago: various self-styled progressives have not only greeted the news of Benedict XVI’s renunciation with glee — almost a “Ding, dong, the witch is dead” attitude — but are almost certainly convinced that, with “God’s Rottweiler” out of the way, the Spirit of Vatican II will finally sweep away the last vestiges of the homophobic, patriarchal “old Church” and blow in a kind of “Catholic spring”.  “The church has such influence worldwide that it would be great to see a Vatican III!” gushed Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times, while Rainbow Sash opined, “The new Pope will have an opportunity like Pope John XXIII to open wide windows of the Church so that fresh ideas may fill the Church by calling for a new Ecumenical Council of the Church, Vatican III.”