At the time, I was inclined to defend him. Maybe he's seriously ill, I reasoned. Maybe he'll be true to his word and disappear in a monastery, a la Pope Gregory XVII in Morris West's book The Clowns of God.
It didn't turn out that way. And now? Apres toi, le deluge.
Benedict's innovation appears to have another layer. The latest news from Rome (translated stories on Rorate Caeli) is that he perhaps didn't really renounce the papacy. Apparently Benedict only cast aside the governing functions of the papacy and has retained prayer and suffering as his "office." As such, goes the story, the Church is effectively being ruled by a diarchy that consists of a CEO (Pope Francis) and Chairman (Benedict).
Ah. That clears everything up.
We have two popes at the head of the Holy Roman Church. Say that a few times to yourself. Now, take a slug of Early Times.
The lengths some are going to pass this stunning news off as just another evening in Roma resemble Han Solo trying to reassure Death Star command after shooting up detention block AA-23. First, there's this from Vittorio Messori, the Corriere Della Sera reporter who broke the news:
"If it truly is so, so much the better for the Church: it is a gift that they are near each other even physically - one who directs and teaches and one who prays and suffers for everyone, but most of all to sustain his confrere in his everyday pontifical office."Oh, dear. Then there's this from "The Anchoress":
"In a way I cannot explain, reading this filled me with joy. I’m sure it is filling others with horror and fear. They run to Revelation all-too-willing to consider verses about imposters and anti-Christs than to consider verses about two witnesses. Or anything else."
Funny, I thought we were supposed to be Roman Catholics, not Pentacostals. Now we see the chaos Benedict's pseudo-renunciation is causing.
Aside from the vapid dig at Steve Skojec (whose writings on the apocalyptic aspect of the dysfunctions in Rome are intellectually serious and definitely worth your time), what fills me with horror and fear is the dumbed-down Catholicism of the "The Anchoress." If you've ever listened to the Catholic Channel on SiriusXM, you know what I'm talking about: fides without ratio. "The Anchoress" can't explain what she's read because there is no rationalization for it. In this formulation (brother, is that a euphemism), 'joy' becomes a convenient substitute for thought.
Von Balthasar's book In the Fullness of Faith offers a guide to the serious ecclesial problems caused by two popes. Inasmuch as abolishing the primacy of the Petrine Office truncates the Gospel, the de facto diarchy contradicts it. Christ chose Peter as first among equals. The Francis-Ratzinger paradox, in essence, finds Christ in error for not raising one of the other apostles up as Peter's coequal.
This, in turn, corrupts the spiritual element of the Petrine Office. The term Vicar of Christ, let us not forget, refers to the unseen, spiritual element; the pneumatic and eucharistic Christ acting through the apostolic successor to actualize what is testified in Scripture. The concept that one pope governs and the other suffers and prays is to split Peter in two. And it calls into question the ability of the Holy Spirit to work through Pope Francis. Does one man lay more claim to the Holy Spirit than the other? How does this affect Francis' ability to conduct ordinations, for instance? Or to fulfill the other sacred functions entrusted to the pope?
Finally, the Petrine Office is the sole unifying principle in the Catholica:
"[T]he more worldwide the Church becomes, the more threatened she is in the modern states with their fascism of the right and of the left, the more she is called upon to incarnate herself in the most diverse, non-Mediterranean cultures, and the wider theological and episcopal pluralism she contains, the more indispensable this reference-point becomes. Anyone who denies this is either a fanatic or an irrational sentimentalist." (emphasis added)How to repair the damage? As I see it, there's really only one way. And that is for Pope Francis to order Benedict away to a monastery, where he would live cloistered as Joseph Ratzinger, no longer garbed in a white cassock, until such time as God called him home.
What are the chances of that happening?
The author makes a number of important and telling points here, but two are especially critical. The first has to deal with the remark by the Anchoress, whom "Komenos rightly castigates. However, there is even more to it than "Komnenos" is able to cover in this short post.
ReplyDeleteThe Anchoress begins her statement, "In a way I cannot explain..." This is illustrative of a huge problem afflicting the broader culture and that appears to be creeping into the Church. Historically the Church has argued that faith and reason, if both were perfectly understood, would be ultimately compatible.
Anchoress, however, is doing something else, and something that is intellectually far more dangerous. She is conflating faith with emotion. In a Church that has prized intellectual and analytical rigor and clarity of thought and expression, we now have arguments being made not on the basis of analysis, but subjective emotion. Faith is not fully provable by reason, but it can be supported by it. Emotion, on the other hand, is entirely subjective and is its own justification.
That a Catholic commentator can make such an argument, and be treated as a credible analyst worthy of respect is breathtaking, Hers is the worst kind of self-referential - and in this case ad hominem- solecism and hardly worthy of a freshman college major let alone as a credible argument about Church teachings.
Cont. below...
Cont. from above...
ReplyDeleteThe Pope, alas, opens the door to this kind of self-regarding and intellectually vapid argument. His papacy has been about feeling better. He is the spiritual field doctor whose job is not to teach a deeply complex and ultimately satisfying theology, but rather to make people feel good.
Into this is ultimately inserted a modernist notion of love. Not love has the Church has taught it - willing the good of the other - but love as modernity experiences it - as feel good emotion.
This is exceedingly dangerous as the modern conception of love is ultimately transitory, requiring ever more emotional stimulus to be satisfying. It is thin gruel compared to the transcendent love of God, but it is what the Pope, either by accident or design, is leaving to the Church he shepherds, Indeed, this leaves the Pope acting not so much as good shepherd as a new age guru - or worse still, a drug pusher.
On the larger question of diararchy itself, it is hard to know at what level what to think. Rumors come and go from Vatican City, and it is hard to know often what is being taken seriously and what not in the halls of the Apostolic Palace.
However, what Komnenos is undisputably right about is that, regardless of how serious the discussion, the Pope and the Pope emeritus have created an atmosphere of doubt and division. They have, intentionally or not, blurred the lines and set the stage for factionalism at a time in history, when pace Anchoress, subjectivism and self-regard are a corrosive acid. If the Church fails to act with clarity and authority, if the institution is called into question, the Anchoress and those like her will rush in to fill the gap and to re-create the Church - and thence God - in their image.
Komnenos says that talk of a diararchy calls into question the ability of the Holy Spirit to work through Pope Francis. That is perhaps a bit overstated. With God all things are possible, and the Church has had to wrestle - at least - with rival claimants to the Throne of St. Peter. If the Holy Spirit can manage that, He will probably mange this too. The ides is that through all the vicissitudes of history, God's plan is ultimately achieved.
However, that is not to minimize Komnenos' central point. We seem to have a Pope who is careless with the office to which he has been entrusted. Assume the very best. Assume that Pope Francis and Pope emeritus Benedict have no intention of dividing the office - indeed it is hard to imagine that Benedict would ever contemplate doing so. Assume that this is, as I am inclined to, view this all as silly rumor.
So be it. It is a rumor nevertheless born of the sloppy language and empty symbolism that is characteristic of this papacy. Far from creating unity and faith, it creates division and uncertainty. In the event, it is another rumor that the Vatican must now work to swat aside, and for those like Anchoress, it will be a swatting that they will not take too seriously.
After all, in that subjective world in which she and those like her feel - it is not thinking - and write, they will KNOW what the Pope REALLY means. Thus, is yet another thread pulled on the garment. The Holy Spirit will have His way, but it is terrifying to think that in some way He will have to work in spite of the efforts of the Vicar of Christ.