On The Papacy

As I begin this article which explains our American Catholic position regarding the papacy, I must reveal that I am fighting to overcome a disability. It is a condition I share with, what I suspect to be, a significant percentage of the population. Even though it can leave its victims seriously disadvantaged, medical or psychological journals do not offer a name, let alone the prevention or cure for it. In the course of journeying through this series, it is my hope to share some progress I've made toward overcoming the effects of this debilitation. It is a progress which is essential to appreciating a fuller view of the ministry of the Pope. It involves a cure and prevention that is simple, even obvious.

We have become adept, these days, at manipulating politically correct words to refer to our handicaps. My wife, Lynn, demonstrates this talent for using words, for example, when she refers to her height of only 5' as being "vertically challenged." It would follow that the politically correct way to accurately describe the condition many of us share would involve the use of the words, "historically challenged." In my case, just because I found it unappealing to study history of any kind, I didn't. As a result, I suffer from what well might be considered a dangerous condition not unlike some which impair a person's eyesight.

If one's disease, for example, were to destroy peripheral vision, it would be critically important for that person to be extremely careful when crossing a busy street. The surroundings, after all, could appear to be very safe within the limits of the visually challenged person's field of vision. Outside of those limits, however, a speeding vehicle could be dangerously close.

Those of us who are historically challenged are also in danger of committing errors as a result of limits in our "historical field of vision." Our condition cuts us off from what, in some cases, is vital information, as it creates the illusion that things have always been as they are now and, worse still, will always be as they are now. If this segment of the population does not discover the cure, it will be condemned for life to repeating the mistakes of the past. Historically challenged people can easily exaggerate the importance of some events, trends, thoughts and traditions, thus perpetuating them. They can just as easily minimize the significance of others. Such errors can certainly cause them to live dangerously. Instead of heroically promoting values which lead to growth and reform, they may become passionate about the sacred status quo. Worse yet, the blur of complacency, apathy, or even hopelessness could tragically disable their growth, both personally and as members of a culture.

The cure we historically challenged seek requires that we look beyond the tiny, disconnected chunk of time that is merely our own personal era and learn lessons that only history can teach us. Understanding the interrelatedness of events past and present can greatly reduce the risk of dangerous errors in judgment. Imagine, moreover, how significant would be our discoveries in the area of Church history for the purpose of correctly interpreting the mission of the Church and the various ministries through which this mission is carried out.

I always have to chuckle when someone asks, "Aren't you that Catholic Church that doesn't believe in the Pope?" While understandable in its intended meaning, for me the question provokes the humorous response, "No Catholics believe in the Pope". You see, Catholics do believe in God and in Christ as their Lord and Redeemer. They believe in the Holy Spirit and that by this Spirit the Church participates in the continuing redemptive work of Jesus through her various ministries. We who, for want of a better name, call ourselves American Catholics also agree with these beliefs as well as with the conviction that a strong papal ministry should promote unity and harmony within the Church.

It would, however, be exaggerating the holiness and importance of the Bishop of Rome for even Roman Catholics to say that they "believe in" him. Such a statement, moreover, can be expressive of just how much power the papacy has assumed by this, our modem era. In this series of articles, I will explain the American Catholic conviction that today's papacy wields too much power and that this power has, over the centuries, become founded in law rather than in Christ. Instead of remaining part of a collegial ministry of unity, it has become a monarchical office of control. Recent trends within the Vatican and heavy-handed tactics on the part of some bishops, all in the name of preserving orthodoxy, continue to indicate a desire to stifle the spirit of collegiality in the church.

To prepare ourselves for the journey we are beginning here, I would like to dispel the misconception that we are an antipapist movement. While we do not fall formally under the jurisdiction of the Roman Church, an incident which occurred a few years ago should shed some light on how seriously we respect the Petrine office. During an inquiry class, I was comparing and contrasting our beliefs regarding the teaching authority of the Holy Father with the "offlcial" Roman Catholic position. A member of a neighboring Roman Catholic parish was "auditing" the course. No one was surprised that he and I did not agree. What was unexpected was his announcement that I considered the Pope to be more important in the life of the church than he did. We reject his and any other notion that the Pope is just a figure-head, holding little or no influence in the lives of Christians. I repeat what I stated earlier: We are In favor of a strong papal office in the Church.

Now let us look at what the Roman Catholic Church teaches about this office today. Catholic theologians would have to admit that the Pope in our day is more important than any church council, the entire college of bishops and, in fact, even more important than the whole rest of the Church. People with a limited field of historical vision may think that this is the way it has always been. It has not. Would you be surprised to discover that the finishing touch in the steady increase of papal power over the last 2,000 years was completed as recently as 1870? Since Plus IX defined papal infallibility that recently in Christian history, we can safely say that such power does not enjoy the support of a long church tradition. Consequently, we can also assert that a papal power as it is today needn't always exist In the future. In this series, we will argue for a strong but less autonomous papal ministry. Unlike power in a monarchy, we believe that papal authority should be checked and balanced by the apostolic responsibility of the other bishops and patriarchs to teach. In this model, which is called "collegial", the Pope would teach what the Church teaches, not the other way around.

Before you think that this is a great new idea that will cause the Church to conform to the dictates of the 21st Century, guess again. Such an approach, which to some may seem more reasonable than the current system, is not so because it is innovative, but because it is time-honored. To find the inspiration for collegiality in the constitution of the church we must expand our historical field of vision back to accounts of how the papacy served the Church from apostolic times until the end of the first 1,000 years of Christian history. To understand how the Petrine ministry drifted so far from this ideal, we need to learn from changes which occurred during the second 1,000 years of Catholic Church history.

We must understand how the faithful are expected to respond to the Pope's teaching to appreciate the enormity of his power in today's Roman Catholic Church. Putting it simply, when the Pope teaches, Catholics agree. (At least in a perfect world they agree.) His teaching is referred to as Papal magisterium. It falls into two categories. Most of it, which comes to us in encyclical letters, homilies, defenses of church discipline and various other documents, falls into the ambit of his ordinary magisterium. To papal teachings of this sort, Roman Catholics must give full assent which is internal, religious but conditional. The obedience of the entire Church must be given to each of these teachings only under the conditions that a given teaching has not changed, or that a dissenting Catholic is not a theologian who has submitted a new theory to the Holy See attempting to refute the teaching in question.

Hypothetically in case one, a Catholic would already be released from obedience since the teaching would no longer exist. In case two, only a very few theologians could possibly be released from obedience to an existing teaching. There are really no conditions, then, under which the average Catholic could dissent from the ordinary magisterium of the Pope. This is so even though such teachings are not considered to be infallible or unchangeable!

The more solemn teachings of the Holy Father fall into the realm of his extraordinary magisterium. All Catholics must give these teachings full assent which is internal, religious and absolute. These teachings, confined to the areas of faith and morals, are considered to be both infallible and unchangeable. This particular (ex cathedra) power has been exercised by the Pope only three times in the history of the Church, and only since 1870.

The theology of papal magisterium flies in the face of any true collegiality. The bishops of the church, even in a council, share in this process only if they teach in agreement with the Pope. Studies which report the beliefs and practices of the laity indicate that the unity which results from such power is, in reality, merely an apparent uniformity. While there is conformity on the part of a minority, there is quiet dissent on the part of the majority.

The question invariably asked about our parish is, "How do you differ from the Roman Catholic Church?" While we do not see our small faith community as radically distinct from Catholicism, we do differ in our understanding of certain Catholic teachings. This is most evident in the more temperate disciplines of our ecclesiastical community rather than in the central truths of our common Catholic faith.

In the present discussion of the place of the papal office in the life of the Church, however, we will explore the central distinction from which our more hospitable Catholic discipline flows. Our position does depart from current Roman Catholic dogma surrounding the Pope's ministry, yet this position is by no means unique in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. It does not, in fact, contradict the Church's own belief in this regard for over half its almost 2,000-year history. This very history, by the way, comprises a significant portion of the tradition considered to be sacred by all Catholics. It is important to note at this point that, in general, it is not our custom to differ from Roman Catholic belief or practice. We do so only when the human law of the Church has deviated from the essence of Christ's ministry still living in the Scriptures, or from the Church's own earlier sacred tradition.

Although I did not realize it at the time, in November of 1995, I received treatment to eradicate the earlier mentioned condition of being "historically challenged." Even though the setting in which the cure took place resembled more a faith healing than a medical procedure, it was administered by a doctor --- of theology and literature, that is. I had studied Dr. Anthony Padovano's works when I was in the seminary. Today, he is a married priest, Catholic pastor of the First Congregational Church of Passaic-UCC in New Jersey, and president of CORPUS (an organization of married priests as well as other women and men dedicated to the reform of Catholic ministry). He stepped up to the podium to deliver the keynote address of the 1995 Call to Action Conference before 4,000 Church reformers from all over the United States, Canada, and Brazil. The presentation which followed, tracing the evolution of the papacy's power through two millennia, was brilliant. A more effective explanation of our "American Catholic" vision of the papal ministry could not have been delivered, even if we had commissioned Anthony Padovano to do so. As a result, I will, having obtained his permission, borrow copiously from his ideas and words to help broaden our historical field of vision regarding the place of the Pope in the life of our church.

The Mosaic law spelled out the way, according to the Divine Will, in which the Chosen People should rightfully respond in love to their Lord. Their observance of the law also clearly identified them as chosen by God, even as they lived among their pagan neighbors. In Jesus' day, however, legalism had caused the law to become the basis for the judgment and condemnation of those who could not lovingly live and move and have their being under its awful weight.

Jesus, the reformer, is the model for all church reform. He put himself at odds with the scribes and Pharisees by declaring that people were more important than the laws governing the Sabbath (Mark 2:2 7), and that worship should not be attempted without forgiveness (Matthew 5:2 3-24). He instructed his disciples to be compassionate to those over whom they held authority, never coercing them like the pagans did (Matthew 20:25-28). "]esus, the reformer, died in agony rather than allowing religion as he knew it to go on without protest." (Padovano, CTA keynote address, 1995) If Jesus is to be our model of reform, we must learn that reform is not accomplished for its own sake. It is, rather, the desirable side effect of living an authentic Christian life.

Aware that the influence of great saints kept the Church focused on Christ, even when the Church had a tendency to turn back to the power of the law, Dr. Padovano began a journey through the first millennium by highlighting an important part of what he calls the "soaring theology" of St. Paul. Paul saw Jesus as central and rejected the law as the basis of religion. For Paul, Jesus' death and resurrection were the events which saved the whole world just as, for him, the law was powerless to save anyone (Galatians 2:16,21; 5:1). This conviction brought him into conflict with judaizers who disrupted Paul's communities with the teaching that Christians had to observe the Mosaic Law. When St. Peter himself began to take their side, Paul and others confronted Peter and convinced him to abandon such ideas. "They made it clear to Peter that he was less than the Church and had to obey it." (Padovano)

Due to the human tendency to rely on the law to create uniformity and order, however, Rome attempted to dominate the rest of the Church during the first millennium. It could not fully succeed in doing so as long as Eastern and Western Christianity remained united and as long as the Pope had no control over Ecumenical Councils. Padovano points out that during this time: I ) the Pope could not call Councils; 2) he could not set their agenda; 3) he held no veto power over them; 4) attending none of them, Popes sent their legates to councils, but only because Rome, along with Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople, was one of five great patriarchates. Even though Rome, during the first millennium, attempted to create a law-based system which claimed priority over the authority of councils and other churches, such attempts were often ignored. As examples of this, Padovano points out: 1) Pope Victor I, who tried to impose a single Western date for Easter and excommunicated all of Asia Minor for defying him; 2) Vigilius, a 6th-Century Pope, who was confused as to whether Christ was fully human. (The Fifth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople clarified the doctrine that Christ was truly human, rejecting the Pope's error.); 3) Honorius I, who was condemned as a heretic by the Sixth Ecumenical Council and by subsequent councils and popes.

It would be difficult to imagine the authority of any pope in our era being questioned or balanced in these ways by a council. It is, however, unquestioned that the Roman System, not to be confused with a strong papal ministry which we favor, was not established until after the Great Schism between East and West in 1054. Eastern Christianity was collegial, that is, not highly centralized around the authority of one bishop. It was not threatened by a process which included councils of bishops as an authoritative part of the process which preserved unity among the churches. After 1054, free of the influence of the Eastern Churches, popes were free to form a system enforced by law and highly centralized around their power.

Three popes, according to Padovano, stand out as founders of the Roman System during the second millennium. The first of these, Pope Gregory VII, was elected only 19 years after the East separated from the West. He saw obedience to God, to the Pope, and to the Church as one and the same. By 1075, Gregory reinforced the Roman System in the 27 propositions of his "Papal Dictates." In so doing, he declared the Pope to be Lord of the Church and ruler of all councils. As Lord of the World and superior to all emperors, the Pope could be judged by no one here on earth. Gregory asserted, despite previous condemnations of its errors, that the Roman Church had never erred, nor would it ever err. Proposition 23 states that every pope is a saint because he inherits the sanctity of St. Peter.

The second major force in the founding of the Roman System was Innocent III. He was not only the Pope reigning during the time of St. Francis of Assisi, but he was also responsible for helping to construct the Church Francis was being called to rebuild. Innocent Ill and the Fourth Lateran Council which he summoned helped maintain the church as the major financial institution in Europe. Francis was called to a life of poverty and to the joyful freedom that comes when the corruptible treasures of this life are not the object of our life's energies nor the measure of success. Innocent took pride in having built a Church which was now law-driven and a military power, using violence to coerce believers into submission. Francis was called to a life of humility, showing forth in his very being nonviolence, peace, and respect for all of creation. The Church of Innocent Ill put its hope in dogma, politics and canon law. Francis was called to a life of simplicity, and put all of his hope in Jesus Christ.

Innocent III was the first to call himself the Vicar of Christ. He was a brilliant canon lawyer and he made law, once again, the central element of religion. He ordered a crusade against the Albigensian heretics of Southern France and approved the slaughter of entire families identified with them. He established the inquisition process, and claimed jurisdiction over every aspect of the Christian life of every member of the Church.

On June 16, 1216, Innocent Ill was discovered dead in the Cathedral of Perugia. He had been robbed and stripped naked by his servants. "The papacy of power ends so often in a bonfire of vanities. Francis died with the marks of Christ on his heart and hands; the whole world still journeys to Assisi in the hope that Francis might make Christ more vital for us. No one goes to Perugia to see where Innocent died." (Padovano)

The third and last major contributor to the founding of the Roman System was Pope Boniface VIII, who lived in the 13th and 14th Centuries. As evidence that he was pathologically unstable, Dr. Padovano cites Dante's Divine Comedy in which the author locates Boniface in the lower levels of the inferno. He was noted for commissioning an inordinate number of sculptors to produce statues of himself. On November 18, 1302, he issued Unam Sanctam in which he proclaimed the doctrine that flies in the face of freedom of conscience and renders some Catholic adults, even today, incapable of making mature decisions about their spiritual well-being: "There can be no salvation for anyone on the face of the earth who is not subject to the Bishop of Rome." At this point, the papacy began to assume the place of Christ.

To consider one other pope who put the finishing touches on the already well established Roman System, we must move ahead to our own era. My grandmother was nearly six years old when Pope Pius IX died. He began the modern practice of Rome naming the world's bishops and single handedly transformed the pious belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary into dogma which must be accepted by all Catholics. "He was convinced that the papacy and its infallibility were more important than any council, or the entire body of bishops, or even the whole Church." (Padovano) During the First Vatican Council in 1870, Pius IX insisted that the Pope had the power to define dogma ex cathedra (from the chair), and that his doctrinal definitions were infallible even if the majority of bishops disagreed. At the same council, the papacy assumed primacy of jurisdiction over every Catholic community and diocese in the world.

How far the church has strayed from St. Paul's rejection of the law in the first millennium and St. Francis' effort to rebuild the church in the second! Today it is difficult to believe that councils kept popes from wielding unchecked power and even from leading the church into error. Living under the Roman System, we risk the danger of failing to recognize St. Francis of Assisi, St. Paul, or even Jesus Christ as reformers. In so doing, we might fall short in responding to Christ's call for us today to be reformers and to rebuild his Church.

When people learn about our "Independent" Catholic Church, particularly if they are not themselves Catholic, they wonder where we find space to put all of our parishioners. The presumption is that a parish like Good Shepherd is such a great idea that making it flourish must be as easy as "falling off a log." To assume, however, that a "reformed" Catholic Church, as many prefer to call it, would grow in leaps and bounds with little or no effort on the part of its clergy, would be to greatly minimize the influence of the Roman System on contemporary Catholics.

Regardless of whether they feel in their heart of hearts that this church celebrates a Catholicism, "the way it should be," many Catholics, even those who are officially separated from the Church, ultimately live according to the conviction of one young man I recently met at a wedding celebration. "I've simply come to the conclusion," he said, "that if I want to be Catholic, I must obey the Church."

I could not agree more! Obedience to the Church, however, must be rendered with the realization that the Church is far more than a body of clergy which enforces laws handed down by a monarch. In identifying the Church as the whole people of God, Vatican II clarified that we too are the Church. The Holy Spirit is active in the lives of all the faithful in such a way that what they believe and how they live their faith becomes part of the Church's Sacred Tradition. Catholics in good conscience must realize, therefore, that being loyal to the Church may not be as simple as conforming. In fact, when such Catholics act in a way that is not in agreement with church law, even the Pope must try to discern in their actions whether or not the Spirit may be moving the Church toward reform. While they must respect Church teaching, they are also obliged to obey their consciences.

This is not easy for many Catholics. Despite the influence of Vatican II, we have grown up in a Church governed by the Roman System, which, as Anthony Padovano points out, depends on a number of carefully preserved and interdependent characteristics.

The Roman System is centralized in that the ministry of unity and the authority it exercises are embodied in the Pope alone. The Roman System is not comfortable with restoring this ministry to a collegial process involving councils and the sensus fidelium (the lives of the entire membership of the Church as moved by the Holy Spirit).

The Roman System is legalistic in that it relies heavily on law to preserve the Church, impart holiness, and accomplish salvation.

The Roman System is insistent on clergy who are absolutely loyal, obedient, and docile in conforming to the law and in teaching others to do so. In fact, "good" priests are those whose thinking never differs with the Roman System and who have very little life outside of it. As celibates, their dedication to the system is not "compromised" by the duties and loyalties marriage and family would involve.

The Roman System is male, and in denying women any real influence in church government, keeps the system single-minded and preserves the control and subservience so often preferred by exclusively male leadership.

The Roman System is dogmatic. While today, crusades or inquisitions would no longer be tolerated, they have been replaced with the harassment of theologians, the demoting and deposing of bishops, the painful procedures of annulments and dispensations, and the denial of communion to the divorced and remarried.

The Roman System is Infallible. Padovano asserts: "The infallibility once attributed to God's Spirit is now transferred to the Pope; the collegial confidence in faith once attributed to all God's People is now encapsulated in a Single Papal monarch."

Is it any wonder that some Catholics who grew up with this thinking, even those who have been ostracized, would find it extremely difficult to practice their faith without the blessing of a power as formidable as the Roman System? The collegial process, however, is not dead. Dr. Padovano points out that even in the second millenium, the Roman System has been challenged and corrected by two great Councils of the Roman Catholic Church. One of them was even convened during many of our own lifetimes! They were the two great reforming Councils: the Council of Constance (1414-1418) and Vatican II (1962-1965).

Constance was the only Council held in Germany. It was called by Pope John XXIII (No, this is not a misprint). A thirty-eight year period during which there were at first two and, toward the end, three popes who reigned simultaneously had just ended! One could hardly imagine a greater threat to the very unity which is supposed to be preserved by the papal ministry, than to have three bishops claiming to be the Pope at the same time!

On April 6, 1415, the Ecumenical Council of Constance passed the decrees, Haec Sancta. In this solemn Church teaching we read:
... this council, legitimately assembled by the Holy Spirit
... has its authority directly from Christ;
everyone ... the Pope included, is bound to obey it in matters of faith, the ending of this schism, and the reformation of the Church."

The Council sought and obtained the removal of all three popes. John XXIII of Pisa, who had called the Council, was deposed on May 29, 1415. Gregory XII of Rome resigned on July 4, 1415. Benedict XII of Avignon was removed on July 26, 1417. By November 11, 1417, when Oddo Colonna was elected Pope Martin V, the unity of the Church had been preserved, not by the Pope, but by a Council.

Ironically, Vatican II was also called by a Pope who took the name, John XXIII. It was a council of reform as was the Council of Constance, and one which took steps to restore the venerable traditions of the earlier Church. Vatican II renewed the notion of collegiality, and the ancient image of the Church as the People of God. It asserted that this Church exists beyond the visible boundaries of the Church of Rome. It encouraged the reading and study of Scripture, emphasized it as the norm for Church teaching, and made it prominent in all liturgical celebrations. The Council Documents were infused with the view of ministry as service. They defended the value of secular life. Marriage in its entirety would now be seen as sacred, and the faithful would, once again, celebrate the Liturgy in their own languages. The reforms of the Second Vatican Council effected changes which Catholics had previously been assured would never occur.

The history of the Church in the first millennium, and the two great reforming councils in the second, give proof that the Roman System is not a permanent feature of the Church. "The Pope is ours." declares Padovano. "The Roman System need not be." He continues: "We affirm the strength of the Catholic tradition, its capacity to endure, its sacramental imagination, its impressive social doctrine, its soaring spiritual and mystical theology, its liturgical creativity and its massive inclusiveness. We celebrate its missionary outreach, its healers and prophets, its martyrs and saints, its noble, noble women, its self-sacrificing pastors and its breathtaking ability to change. A Church which gave the world John XXIII and Vatican II in the same decade, is capable of anything."

In spite of all of its imperfections and instances of sin and corruption, the Church is still in the world and through it the Gospel is still being preached. It is in its continued existence as a pilgrim people on its way toward God, possessing a remarkable capacity to survive its mistakes, that it can be called an infallible community.

In reality, then, our modified notion of the extent and importance of the authority of the Holy Father is not based on the uncertain principles of what has never been, but on what had been in place during much of the Catholic Church's sacred past. With clear evidence provided by history, we are convinced that the influence of the Holy Spirit is moving the entire Church Catholic in an evolution toward a view of the Papacy which is consistent with our American Catholic view.

We welcome all Catholics who may feel inclined to be part of a more hospitable Catholic discipline to judge, based on this broadened historical field of vision, whether or not we fall well within the boundaries of a reasonable and moderate Catholicism. Our position on the Papacy, as found in our brochure, Welcome to Good Shepherd Church, does well to sum up a belief which, in our view, does not prevent us from claiming the name "Catholic". It reads:

"Like the Roman Catholic Church, we believe in the infallible teaching authority of the Universal Church which necessarily involves the ministry of the Pope. Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, we believe that the Pope cannot teach infallibly in the area of faith and morals independent of any collaboration with the College of Bishops, with theologians, or without due consideration of the sensus fidelium. In other words, we believe infallible teaching is possible only when the Pope, patriarchs, bishops of Apostolic Churches, and all of the faithful make it a truly collegial process."