Interesting
Andrew Sullivan posts a note from a reader:
There is no denying that religion, and the Catholic Church in particular, has inspired and fostered many wonderful people. I think of Peter, humble and contrite and transformed after his denial; Mary Magdalen, of whom nothing need be said; the fathers of the Egyptian desert and their almost unbearable kindness and gentleness; Francis of Assisi and his Lady Poverty;
Francis de Sales, who found a way to be both a prelate and a saint; and in our own times, Dorothy Day, who practiced a Christianity as radical as Christ’s own, while remaining a faithful daughter of the Church. And I say nothing of the countless mute, inglorious saints whom only God knows.
But the Church as an institution is mired in the world to its own great detriment. The worst thing that ever happened to it was Constantine’s conversion and its consequent establishment. For the Church itself should have remained a pilgrim. No cathedrals and episcopal palaces. No mitres, croziers, and gorgeous vestments. No princes of the Church. Just plain men and women going out to find and care for lost sheep, the wisest among them showing the way by example and quiet counsel.
It might have gone that way. It could yet. But the need to overawe people and demand obedience from them is powerful and seductive. It is a part of that world that the kingdom of heaven is not of.
There are certainly things there to criticize – mainly the generally protestant take on history: the Church wasn’t “established” in the wake of Constantine, for example – and it depends what he means by “demand obedience.” But the idea that the Church’s presentation of itself could definitely be more along the lines of the presentation of its Founder — humble, prophetic, identifying itself far more explicitly with the poor in its public face, and so on — is something that has occurred to me as well.
What are your thoughts?
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It was not just Constantine but it was also Renaissance Popes from rich families like the Medici who continued to build the Vatican as affluent in terms of art works and French Bergere’s later which then gave it prestige which material prestige Christ lived without excepting the nard which He pointed out was specifically for His burial. God in case no one noticed providentially took away vast lands from the Church and from the Vatican during the last two centuries since we used to have all of central Italy and I predict He will one day take away Castel Gandalfo since it’s meaning for awhile was as an escape for the Pope from the heat of Rome in the summer. Has anyone in Rome heard of central air or at least window air conditioners for the Pope rather than a mansion with gardens as extensive as a public park.
Last week Benedict warned the Czechs about hedonistic consumerism and Benedict has a grand piano, Prada or personal cobbler shoes, Serenghetti sunglasses and a bullet proof BMW. He is not getting enough feedback on the weirdness of it all. Few Czechs can afford a BMW let alone a bullet proof one. They” accept rebuke on consumerism from someone like Mother Teresa who had not Prada shoes…not from recent Popes. John Paul did similar in his warnings to the West about materialism while he put in an inground swimming pool at Castel Gandalfo. Again there are no men around them who are helping them grow through rebuke. Augustine said one only grows by both rebuke and grace and we are trying in families and in the papacy to grow only by grace and without rebuke for half a century now.
Demanding obedience? Christ would not have simultaneously said as we do in our parish bulletins that God “invites” you into relationship and then made it and kept by canon law a mortal sin to miss Mass even though your homilist for 20 years has been a zero. So you perish into damnation if one day you can no longer stand the moron homily level. I don’t think Christ would require that. He’ll bind what the Pope binds on earth…but even Christ has his limits in that area. And it had the weird result that Catholics will worry about missing Mass but not about driving above the speed limit on residential streets where children are playing….or smoking and ending up dying in the ICU of a hospital.
Thank you. I’m done.
I am uncertain by what he means “demand obedience”. The pope and our bishops can speak again and again against contraception and abortion, but in the end what is really being “demanded” of us? Through these demands are we being coerced against our will to act? If one is bothered by these “calls” for obedience perhaps he/she should contemplate why one is irked by announcements from the Vatican or our parish pulpit. This applies not only to the hot button issues I mentioned above, but also to the topic of immigration, war, healthcare, our prison system, the death penalty… Our Church leaders speak so often about a variety of subjects that I believe many would find an opportunity to say “who is the Pope to tell me that xxxx, or I don’t need to listen to Bishop So and So on this topic…”
I agree that the Church’s presentation should change or should be one of our bishops and priest asking us to change. Speaking as an American, so many of us have so much stuff and live at a hectic pace that it all becames a huge detriment to live the Gospel. Speaking locally of my diocese in Northern California, there are many proud efforts to be the pilgrim church and to live and give as presented in the Gospel…yet, our parishes also seem so caught up in on-going capital projects that I wonder to what end.
I agree with dpt. I wish MORE people would listen to the Pope and the Bishops on, say, health care.
Standmickey,
Read Karl’s piece on the principle of double effect and how a Catholic husband would have lost his wife to death in the 19th century obeying the Vatican in the case of ectopic pregnancy and now the husband would not lose his wife in the same situation obeying the later 20th century Vatican. The Church can err in the ordinary magisterium (not to be confused with the universal ordinary magisterium) and Ludwig Ott says as much in the introduction to his Fandamentals of the Catholic Faith here just before section 9:
“With regard to the doctrinal teaching of the Church it must be well noted that not all the assertions of the Teaching Authority of the Church on questions of Faith and morals are infallible and consequently irrevocable. Only those are infallible which emanate from General Councils representing the whole episcopate, and the Papal Decisions Ex Cathedra (cf. D 1839). The ordinary and usual form of the Papal teaching activity is not infallible. Further, the decisions of the Roman Congregations (Holy Office, Bible Commission) are not infallible. Nevertheless normally they are to be accepted with an inner assent which is based on the high supernatural authority of the Holy See (assensus internus supernaturalis, assensus religiosus).”
The Simon says approach to Catholicism is absolutely mandated when infallibility has clearly and certainly occured as it has on abortion section 62 of Evangelium Vitae…but there are areas in which the Simon says approach causes non growth in the Church which is why we were able to be incorrect on usury until 1830 while Calvinists had our 1830 answer in 1545 despite our apologetics people constructing an elaborate explanation as to how we were just waiting for the nature of money to change.
How then did Calvin have our answer in 1545 without waiting for money to change in nature? Apologetics should defend what needs defending; it should not function as a coverup on ususry or as did Leo XIII’s encyclical to the Brazilian bishops which was a fictional recounting of how solidly the Church fought slavery (he left out the papal support for same from 1452 to 1511) and yet subsequent apologetics people simply copied his erroneousl recounting…including the late Cardinal Avery Dulles.
Obeying the Pope from 1452 onward til 1537 in Portugal meant inter alia signing up for the slave trade based on a permision in Romanus Pontifex/ 4th paragraph middle.