The English language can rarely capture the richness of German compound nouns. Take Cardinal Gerhard Müller’s complaint last week about “scheinheiliges Papstdevotion”. Roughly translated, it means “sanctimonious and excessive devotion to the Pope”. It is, says Cardinal Müller, one of the Vatican’s besetting problems.
“Every Catholic, especially every bishop and every cardinal, has a positive and constructive relationship with the Pope,” said the recently removed head of the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation. “But that is anything but courtly behaviour and an obsequious manner, against which Pope Francis has always spoken.”
As the cardinal says, Francis has himself objected to the cult of papal personality: when a statue of him appeared outside Buenos Aires Cathedral, he immediately asked the clergy to remove it. But the issue hasn’t gone away, partly because of doctrinal debates (on which more in a moment) and partly because of the atmosphere within the Vatican. One Roman source, who asked to remain anonymous, says there is a “definite group” who believe that “if they can be seen to be [the Pope’s] most vocal supporters on some issues close to his heart, like poverty and marginalisation, he’s more likely to give them a free hand in other areas that he isn’t closely involved in.
“On a day-to-day basis it’s not hard to tell who is trying to bank papal goodwill against the day they want the Pope to back them up on, for example, recommendations for appointments,” the source says.
This may contribute to an atmosphere in which authoritative voices say that one must “follow the Pope” without specifying what they mean. Those who defend the Church’s teaching against Communion for the remarried, for instance, are told that they are not “following Peter”, that they are “against the Pope”.
These phrases generally prompt some equally predictable responses. Didn’t St Catherine of Siena tell the Pope that if he couldn’t get his act together he should resign? Haven’t theologians often debated papal error? Didn’t Newman approvingly quote Cardinal Torquemada as saying that “were the Pope to command anything against Holy Scripture, or the articles of faith, or the truth of the Sacraments, or the commands of the natural or divine law, he ought not to be obeyed, but in such commands is to be passed over”?
Even in matters of doctrine, “following Peter” is clearly not as simple as it sounds. Pope Liberius sided with the Arians; Pope Honorius was actually condemned by the Third Council of Constantinople, and the great historian Abbot John Chapman found some of Honorius’s statements “obviously and beyond doubt heretical”. John XXII publicly preached his own theories about the afterlife, which he later had to retract after theologians pronounced them to be errors against the faith.
Nevertheless, it is hard to believe that all the angry denunciations of Pope Francis on social media really express the sensus fidelium.
Dr John Joy, president of the St Albert the Great Center for Scholastic Studies, says we must show “authentic filial love for our Holy Father”. At the same time, he points to GK Chesterton’s remark that “My country, right or wrong” is no more an expression of genuine love than “My mother, drunk or sober.” True love means willing the good of the other, which means we cannot overlook concerns about the welfare of the Pope and the Church.
So personal attacks against our pastors are wrong; and in general one should give a pope the benefit of the doubt. “However,” Dr Joy adds, “there can be cases where a pope says or does something that can in no way be reconciled with the faith even given the most charitable reading possible. In this case a Catholic might appropriately express himself as being unable to see any way in which the words or acts in question can be understood in an orthodox manner, and he may give his reasons for thinking them false or imprudent.” Of course, one should not set oneself up as the final arbiter of orthodoxy – that is the Church’s role.
It’s a difficult balance, Dr Joy admits, but “the intensity of our piety ought to prevent us from going too far in our criticism, and the intensity of our concern ought to prevent us from straying into mere papolatry.”
Catholicism has always seen obedience – within marriage and the family, within the political order, within the Church – as a great virtue. The present moment demonstrates that obedience is not a simple virtue, just a necessary one.
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