The Papl Vist to USA, the wrong and right questions

Eques writes from his annual spiritual retreat guided by the Fathers of the Priestly Fraternity of the Holy Cross. It is during these very days that our dear Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI is making his first visit as Pope to these United States.

There is a heightened apprehension and speculation on the part of the secular media, as to what political impact the Holy Father’s pastoral visit will have on the imminent primary election, in the largely Catholic state of Pennsylvania, and on the Presidential election itself.

It is indicative of the nature of secular journalism in our times that the first and foremost question, the fundamental question is not being asked, the question that would assist them and the nation in answering the above secondary questions. The Holy Father is making a pastoral visit to the members of his flock and like Christ to those who are not of his flock to whom Christ and hence his Vicar is also sent, “that there may be one flock one shepherd.” The primary question is what impact the pastoral visit of the Pope will have on the faith of Catholics here in these United States.

If this question was asked and answered the secular media would have a considerably improved opportunity to comprehend and predict the answers to the secondary political questions.

The Roman Catholics in the United States have generally embraced the popes of their times with love, affection and respect. However, they have not always listened to the voice of Peter or followed his teachings. Americans have all too often incorrectly applied their love for democracy and national anti-authoritarian political principles to their relationship with the church and its anointed leaders. The relationship of a Catholic to the teaching Magisterium of the church, to his pastor, bishop, and pope, has been culturally adulterated. The relationship of a Catholic to his church is and ought to be of an entirely different nature from his relationship to his state.

The state is a human creation and entity, properly governed by the citizens, for citizens. Its laws are humanely established and may be humanly disestablished. It is a thoroughly natural institution. It derives its authority from the people and is ultimately responsible to the people. It has no authority that the people have not granted it. It is a rational enterprise hierarchical in structure but horizontal in nature.

The Catholic (universal) Church is an entity of an entirely different order than the state. The model of dealing and thinking about the state by its Catholic citizens cannot properly be applied to their relationship with their Church. Several organizations of lay folks have sprung up around the Church and the contemporary fault line of hot button political and human issues such as same-sex unions, abortion, and the clergy-sex-abuse crisis, as well as around internal church controversies such as the ordination of women, and married clergy.

All of these organizations claim to be Catholic because their membership is Catholic. All of them wrongly attempt to apply the secular model of political philosophy to the governance of the Church. Americans believe they can alter the nature of the church the way they influence the actions of the state by bringing political pressure on church authorities.

What is wrong with this assumption? Actually, there is a great deal wrong with it. The Church is by nature a divinely constituted entity. Our Lord and savior Jesus Christ himself established the church on Peter the rock, (Mat 16:16-19).

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Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."

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Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.

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And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

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I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

The Holy Spirit guides and governs the church through its anointed leaders. The church is a Faith and Reason enterprise hierarchical in nature and vertical in orientation. Through the ministry of the church sacramental and sanctifying grace is mediated and administered to all the faithful. Its role is to bring God to man and man to God; it is thus vertically oriented. It is hierarchical in that Christ himself chose the twelve and the seventy-two and placed Peter at their head and the head therefore all disciples. The church is the preeminent top down institution for it comes from the Holy Trinity to man to save, serve, teach, and govern. The divine law has been revealed in and through Jesus Christ. It is the role of its hierarchy to deliver this revelation to the faithful in pristine form. The authority of the Church comes directly from God, not form the ordained or lay members. The mission of the Church was mandated by Christ himself before he ascended to the Father, go and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 29:19-20

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Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,

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teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."

and (Mark 16 :15-16)

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He said to them, "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.

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Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.

The Church can only be reformed by the Holy Spirit working through the structure mandated by Christ himself that is through the Holy Father, who holds the Petrine office and thus the power of he keys, in collegial union with the Bishops of the church.

No self appointed or free association of Lay or Ordained faithful have the divine mandate to change either the structure of the church, it doctrine, or dogma. Catholics for Pro-Choice can not possible be a Catholic organization, because it has not been divinely constituted nor has it received the approbation of the Holy Father and Bishops in council. The members are by definition dissenting from the authentic teaching of the Church, and have no standing within the church, apart from their baptismal dignity, which they themselves jeopardize by their public defiance of the moral and implicitly ecclesiastical teachings of the church.

Similar conclusions can be drawn concerning other reforming and dissenting organizations that campaign for the ordination of women and sacramental same-sex marriage.

A special word of warning is in order for another self-appointed reform minded organization, the so-called Voice of the Faithful, or VOTF. It is particularly note worthy concerning this organization that they sprang from a sincere concern for the victims of sexual abuse by clergy. This was a praiseworthy concern and advocating for the human well-being of the children of God is both a spiritual and corporal work of mercy, indeed a road to holiness.

The VOTF, however, even in its gestation process began to mutate in to a self-appointed deconstruction corporation dedicated to the democratization of the church and lobbyists for lay-investiture. In the first instance, the name Voice of the Faithful was a self-aggrandizing appellation. The members of the VOTF were not elected by the majority of the faithful to represent or speak for them. The VOTF is no more the “voice of the faithful” than “the Democratic People’s Republic of China” is democracy for or by the people or a Republic. It is not without irony that an organization that desires to democratize the Catholic Church and claims to have the mandate of the Second Vatican Council to do, essentially non-democratic.

When Vatican II expressed a desire for lay experts to share their knowledge and experience with the bishops of the church, it hastened to include the directive “through existing structure.” The hierarchy of the Catholic Church should not hesitate to consult those laity with particular skills, arts, and knowledge that will further its mission as church to the world. Lay experts should seek to work with their bishops to enhance the mission of the church through the existing structures established by the bishops for this purpose. These structures are canonical such as Finance Committees, and ecclesiastical such as Pastoral Councils. They are not organizations that establish themselves without any hierarchical or canonical connection to the church. The expressed goal of the VOTF and other such organizations is to alter the teachings or the structure of the church. The logical conclusion that the VOTF, Catholics for Pro-choice, Call to Action, or any like minded organization is not Catholic must be drawn.

Now we rightly pose the question, what effect will the papal visit have on the Roman Catholic Church in these United States; this is the essential question. We Catholic citizens are challenged by the presence of our Holy Father to examine our consciences, asking ourselves if we are Catholic citizens or Citizens who happen to be Catholic. Have we become so American that we believe the American way must also be the Catholic way? Are we capable of renewing our Catholic Perspective? Are we able to order our priorities? Our nation would be enriched by Catholics bring their unique Catholic perspective to bear on the myriad of issues and crises facing it today.

In Pope Benedict XVI, we have Peter in our midst. He brings to us the authentic teaching of Christ and His Church. He brings a special presence of Christ in our midst as His Vicar on earth. Let us embrace both with love. Let us follow the admonition of his wise and saintly predecessor John Paul the Great, “be not afraid” opening wide the doors of our hearts and minds to Christ.

Is the Roman Catholic Church a bulwark of democracy?

Updated with new Response from Dr Art Kyriazis


Salve readers,

Quod Scripsit is very interested in the critique of our Western Civilization/Culture and the direction(s) it is taking. The basic premise is "Resolve, Western Civilization” is a product of Christianity and the Roman Catholic and Protestant riff in particular which ushered in the Enlightenment and made the "horrors" of the French Revolution possible.


Art Kyriazis Harvard Class 80/81 comments below.
Eques’ response follows Art's argument on the resolution. This exchange is going on the "Harvard Alumni Association Discussion Groups" website as well.


Dear Eques

Hi, Art Kyriazis 80/81' writing here.

I'm a molecular biologist now but an old social studies major so I can't resist taking a chop at your comment on the list serve here.

(1) I just watched the movie " Elizabeth : the Golden Age" with Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen etc. The central thesis of this movie, which centers on the defeat of the Spanish armada by the English, is that the defeat of catholic Spain by Protestant England was something quite important for the development of trade and freedom in the world. as with the defeat of the Persians at marathon and salamis by the ancient Greeks, one can surely argue that the English protestants carried with them traditions of freedom, law and liberty (and parliamentary rule) that later took root in the new world (not to mention Canada, India and many commonwealth nations); not to mention that many historians and social theorists suggest that the Spanish economy was largely feudal and mercantile (as Commodore Perry our old professor at Harvard was wont to
argue) due to its catholic nature hoarding gold and exploiting the new world for the state instead of allowing numerous private companies as did the Dutch and English (Weber's notion of the protestant ethic and capitalism).

(2) corollary to this is the notion that England enjoyed a better nationalism due to the union of their church with the king
(Cesaro-Papism) while the laws resided with parliament, while the catholic powers of the continent were weakened by the church authority residing in Rome while the secular power resided with each king. This weakened Spain , France and the holy roman empire in turn, and was not fully resolved until the French revolution and the Napoleonic conquests which drove the inquisition from Spain and disenfranchised catholic property and dominion in France , leaving in place strong nationalist states in France and finally allowing Germany to unify.

(3) the ottoman empire was very powerful during this entire time, and they certainly enjoyed a union of state and church, in that the sultan was both the secular and spiritual leader of all Islam as well as of the continuing jihad from 1453 until the end of the sultanate in 1922. In addition, he was also after the fall of the roman empire with the taking of Constantinople in 1453, the roman emperor as well as the ruler of the Rumi-Orthodox--the roman christian subjects of his land, who of 12 millions who lived in the ottoman lands, fully 4 million at any one time, Romanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Serbian, etc. all answered to one orthodox christian patriarch ensconced in Constantinople, loyal not to the pope, but to the sultan. While modern nationalist histories portray the sultan and the ottomans in a bad light, the truth is that the Greeks, Armenians and Jews who had no religious liberty in the catholic states prospered in the ottoman empire as bankers, traders, seamen etc, building up large trading cities in Smyrna, Skopje etc. and living in large mansions. The economic contributions of non-Muslims to the Muslim empire were not inconsiderable, and many of these peoples were driven to live in ottoman countries due to the fact that all of the Sephardi Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492; the Greeks (Rumi) felt more welcome in ottoman rumeli and Asia minor to practice their religion as orthodox than they did in Italy, which had but one Greek church in Venice; and the Armenians certainly were tolerated until very late in ottoman history.

(4) The Chinese and Mogul empires in China and India were powerful during the 16th and 17th centuries, as were the Japanese feudal warlords who were quickly assimilating western ways and weapons before they shut the country off from the west.

(5) It is difficult to say what propelled the west to the top of the heap civilization wise. The fall of Constantinople was certainly critical, as it sent a number of Greek and Latin scholars of Greek ancestry to Italy, along with their books, to disseminate original Greek and Latin knowledge to the humanists.
This has been the thesis of Burckhardt in his work on the renaissance and of jb bury for many years. more recently works on George of Trebizond have also cited the critical role of Greek scholars in the revival of Greek study. Certainly the establishment of a chair in Greek studies in England in the early 1500s was a turning point in English science and literary affairs, and led directly to Newton, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and the king James bible as we now know them all. From Newton, all else follows, including Maxwell, Einstein and the atomic bomb.

(6) it's hard to say that the humanists were devoutly catholic.
Galileo was at odds with the Jesuits; Copernicus was afraid to publish his findings; in many ways, the inquisition and the Jesuits were opponents of humanism and of scientific progress. In time, the English developed the faster, lighter ships with more cannon and better engineering because they had freedom of thought and freedom of scientific inquiry--Bacon, Raleigh, drake--all were encouraged to think, to travel until England had reached every corner of the globe with mercantile trade by the time of Elizabeth.
They feared nothing and least of all their own inquisition or Jesuits, because the catholic faith had been suppressed in England.

(7) Two of the greatest crimes in history in the middle ages have to be ascribed to the catholic church, the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by the 4th crusade, and the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathari of Southern France (Provencal France) in 1209). These were not isolated events. Throw in the crusade less than a hundred years later against the knights Templar sanctioned by the pope and you have a picture of what the inquisition was really all about.
In Constantinople, they burned 2/3 of the classical works that had been preserved in the library and melted down the original ancient sculptures, preserved for centuries unharmed, for bronze; and they took all of the holy relics of Christ, which had been carefully collected by the roman emperors over the years, including the crown of thorns and holy lance, and used them as collateral for loans from Italian bankers, and when the Latin emperors defaulted on the loans, the relics were sold and dispersed to the various emperors of the west, included the holy grail itself, which was lost. The Cathari, who had developed Provencal literature and the cult of the troubadours, were silenced forever, and a literary and cultural tradition was forever lost.

(8) On the plus side, the Vatican has managed to keep a large number of items in its own library intact.

(9) The current pope seems anxious to effect another union (more permanent than the councils of Lyon or
Florence) with the eastern church, which now boasts 500 million strong. However the eastern church only recognizes the seven ecumenical councils through the 8th century ad; the western church lists all of the Lateran and Vatican councils, as well as papal encyclicals, as being of importance somehow. Moreover, Vatican II, which the western church ratified and announced, which revoked much of the bad and harmful intolerance that had characterized Catholicism for centuries, is seemingly now being chipped away at by neo-conservatives in the Vatican. It would seem that one pre-requisite for there to be union between the Vatican and eastern church, is strict adherence to Vatican II.

these are just a few points.

--Art Kyriazis ab 80/81
Eques Responds

Salve Art,
Well reasoned response, which I do not have the necessary time to respond to, this being holy Week. I would like to comment in the near future on:
1. That "protestant England at first was not Protestant but schismatic. One could argue that until the 19th century with the exception of the "puritan revolt" the Anglican Church considered itself catholic. Cardinal Newman attempted to prove such, but much to his surprise found that over time, the "Catholic Faith" in England had been corrupted by Protestantism, but he claims it did not begin that way. Therefore, the growth of the British Commercial Empire early still found its roots in what they themselves believed was Catholic but not Papists."
2. I believe that the worse thing to happen in Western and European history was the French Revolution, as Edmund Burke and Dickens (neither Catholic) would agree. It brought to the world the first Modern Totalitarian State , guillotine, secret police, state religion, (as opposed to a nationalized version of Catholicism as in the East and England) and global war, the real First World War being the Napoleonic Wars.
3. No Conservative, Republican, or Roman Catholic philosophically or theologically could rightly support a totalitarian state. Also the international character of Roman Catholicism makes it the only Church capable of resisting oppression form such states globally, in such places as Philippines, East Timor, Sudan, Central America, Poland, Hungary, and many more places in many other times, including the French Revolution and its after math.
4. I do believe that the lingering feudalism in Spain, with its protection of the aristocracy and hence the lack of industrial development, was in part a by product of conservative Catholicism that was leery of democracy, as were all the crown heads of Europe until it was thrust upon them by the debacle of the "First World War." I would also have to attribute this at least in Spain to other cultural factors, which were I admit, rooted in Catholicism.
5. I believe you err in your characterization of the "Two of the greatest crimes in history in the Middle Ages have to be ascribed to the catholic church, the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by the 4th crusade, and the Albigensian Crusade against the Cithara of Southern France (Provencal France) in 1209). These were not isolated events. Throw in the crusade less than a hundred years later against the knight's Templar sanctioned by the pope and you have a picture of what the inquisition was really all about."
a. The "Sack of Constantinople" was a horror to the Pope. It was never contemplated by the church; it was the direct result of Crusader kings and Barons looking for a quick buck.
b. The Albigensian or Cithara heresy was seen as a direct threat on the political stability of medieval Europe. Catholic princes, though they may have cared little for their Catholic Faith believed as Constantine did that there could be a unified state only with a unified religion. Heresy of all kind was not only an attack on the faith but also on the state, moderns have difficulty grasping this aspect of the medieval mindset; it was true then of Orthodox, Muslim, and later Protestant States, and princes.
Remember England is one of the few nation states today that still has an established church, and it was not until the early nineteenth century that the penal laws were relaxed against Catholics and The Catholic hierarchy restored. This was also in part due to the continued Anglican Bishops claim that they were the Catholic Bishops in England right up to the Mid-nineteenth century.
c. The suppression of the Order of the Poor Knights of St John of the Temple of Jerusalem, the Knights Templar was first in no way a crusade. It was the direct result of the greed and debts of King Philip IV of France, who had acquired an enormous debt to the Templars. He eyed their international treasury housed in guess where? The Bastille, as the solution to his problem, therefore he had the usual charges of various heresies, sins drown up against the Templars, and pressured the Pope to allow the arrest and trail, wherever in his realm they could be found, while encouraging the other kings to do the same with the aid of the Bishops he controlled. He was able to do this because he also controlled the Clement V, who was a Frenchman that Philip IV whose election as pope was manipulated by Philip IV. Clement V was the first of the Avignon Popes, and thus at the mercy of Philip IV.
Therefore, what you characterize as a crusade by the power of Catholic Church was an example of what happens when the Church was not independent or sovereign. The suppression of the Templars was the direct outcome of a Pope and Catholic Church that was controlled by a powerful king. The Church would fight this, I believe rightly so by insisting on an Independent and Sovereign Papal State, so that the church could not be manipulated so easily by powerful kings, emperors, or dictators in the future. The Popes fought this battle right up to 1870 when Rome was illegitimately seized by the newly created Italian Monarchy under Victor Emanuel II. The Popes remained “prisoners of the Vatican ” until the Lateran Council of 1927 negotiated by Mussolini for the King of Italy and the House of Savoy. This concordat recognized the sovereignty of “yle="">Stato Della Citta Del Vaticano,” and various other extraterritorial possessions of the Holy See and paid reparations to the Holy See for the seizure of Rome and the Papal States in the previous century, hence in effect legitimizing the Pontifical claims of 1870 to its sovereign status.
d. Therefore, I believe it erroneous to say that any of the events were the result of Church authority but rather the lack of and examples rather of what continues today attempts at the powerful of the world to manipulate the Church for its own purposes.
e. As along as the church does not have the coercive power of the state, that is the power to punish with incarceration, or death, rights it actually only exercised in the Papal States themselves (a necessary embarrassment for a Church, that was also a state with a population, that was in need of all the laws and order of any other state at that time) I believe that the Roman Catholic Church is the greatest institutional and moral guardian against the rise of the totalitarian super state.
Art, thank you for your thoughts, I await your retort.
Vale et Pax
Eques

Dr Art Kyriazis answers

(Dr Art does not use upper case letters, it is as he wrote it unedited.)

will state here that I am of the orthodox faith, so my holy week is deferred this year, but I understand there are ecumenical discussions and negotiations underway to at least unite the Easters of the Western and Eastern Churches, which would be a wonderful thing indeed.

I would start with common ground. I believe the passion of the christ and the mysteries of easter and the resurrection of the christ is for me, and for billions of people in the world, one of the most important touchstones of faith in their devotion to god. There is little question that this is my favorite service of the year and of course, our theological calendar begins and ends at easter and the pentecost and the ascent.

I find myself agreeing with the fine points you make. England was indeed quite schismatic; as I point out in my other response, they had a tendency to export dissent to the new world rather than simply supress it. This does not encompass fully the irish question, which is a shameful episode in their history.

The horrors of the french revolution i fully share revulsion for. As I am fundamentally a conservative, Burke has always been one of my touchstones. While I don't agree with all of the points you make extending from the french revolution, I agree it was a horrible event. I would add that it lit the fuse for all of the nationalist uprisings of the 19th and 20th century, starting with the Greek Revolution of 1821-1830, to the bosnian nationalist who shot the archduke of austria and started world war I, to the disintegration of the ottoman empire along nationalist lines and the eastern problem. even the russian revolution.

plus my personal favorite word, "the thermidorean reaction".

I certainly agree that modernly catholicism, especially since vatican II, has been a liberating force against totalitarianism, especially in places like poland behind the iron curtain. however there remains the problem of the concordat of 1938 with hitler, and the complicity of the church with the croats against the serbs in wwII, and other similar scenarios which played out, along with their role vis a via Mussolini.

we agree about spain.

On the 4th crusade and albigensian crusade, your arguments have been made by certain historians, and are well-supported, but so have been mine, and we will agree to disagree. There are a plethora of recent studies on the subject, plus of course the original sources such as Villardhouin, which I have read and re-read. There are both crusader and greek accounts.

On the knights templar, let's leave that one alone. it's been overdone with movies etc.

the pope for many years had a secular state and an army==the papal states. for much of history the pope had coercive means at his disposal and the ability to ally with military forces. there are many works and sources on this point. Obviously france and the holy roman empire have intervened on numerous occasions either to interfere with the pope's secular power or at the pope's invitation; also spain for many years was involved in the affairs of italy. before the arrival of the normans, the byzantines were rulers of southern italy and sicily. Many powers have been involved in italy. If you re-read your machiavelli and other italian writers, you will see the secular role the pope played for many centuries.

i agree modernly the pope, and especially recent popes, have been champions of freedom. i think the recent pope who died should be beatified.

--dr arthur kyriazis