Category: Church

Life, including time spent in West Michigan’s largest corn maze, has given me little time to write, which may be for the best given current events in Rome. Now comes the time when the contrasts between the “Optimists” and the “Realists” concerning Pope Francis’s reign will become even more apparent. The “Optimists,” well-intentioned though they may be, appear to lack the sobriety and historical vision of the “Realists.” A striking example of “Optimism” can be found over at Ethika Politika today where Audra Nakas writes:

At the end of the day, I trust Pope Francis because I trust that the Holy Spirit guides the Church and listens to our prayers. Whatever his weaknesses as a human being or as a leader, Francis is the Vicar of Christ leading us in this particular time and moment. He takes us out of our comfort zones because it’s his job to challenge us to live the Gospel; a person who doesn’t find him or herself challenged by Francis’ words and example isn’t listening.

For the “Realist” camp, I have been particularly impressed by the commentary of Elliot Milco whose recent blog series, “A Critique of Contemporary Ultramonantism” (now in four parts), is essential reading for those who wish to understand — and overcome — the contemporary pathology of papal maximalism. As the following extended quote shows, Milco has never been afraid to call balls and strikes when it comes to Francis’s pontificate. Perhaps we shouldn’t be either.

From an address given today by Francis to an inter-religious assembly gathered at the World Trade Center Memorial.

For all our differences and disagreements, we can live in a world of peace. In opposing every attempt to create a     rigid uniformity, we can and must build unity on the basis of our diversity of languages, cultures and religions, and lift our voices against everything which would stand in the way of such unity. Together we are called to say “no” to every attempt to impose uniformity and “yes” to a diversity accepted and reconciled.

There have been a few moments during this pontificate when I’ve simply balked at Francis. His apology to a group of pentecostal protestants in Italy because in past years the Church had obstructed the growth of their denomination. His insistence in a speech after last year’s Robber Synod that doctrine had not been called into question, despite the overtly heretical implications of Walter Kasper’s proposal. But to date the above takes the cake. The man occupying the See of Peter is publicly preaching indifferentism. What a disgrace.

Both Pius X and you, Most Holy Father, received the fullness of the authority to teach, sanctify, and govern in obedience to Christ, Who is the head and pastor of the flock at all times and in all places, and whose faithful vicar the Pope must be on this earth. That which has been subject to a solemn condemnation cannot, over time, become an approved pastoral practice.

These words, taken from Bishop Bernard Fellay’s recent petition to Pope Francis before the upcoming Synod on the Family, should be common knowledge among all Catholics. Sadly, that is not the case. During his recent trip to the United States, social media and news outlets (Catholic and secular) were filled with the spirit of neo-Ultramonantism, shouting down anyone who would dare question any of the Holy Father’s words or actions as he addressed the President, Congress, the United Nations, and, yes, faithful Catholics as well. There is, admittedly, a contingent of American Catholics who drink deep from the well of (politically conservative) liberalism; their critiques — unimaginative, ignorant, and ideologically charged — needn’t be paid any mind. But there is a more serious, and apparently growing, body of believers who see in this Pontificate a noticeable, perhaps even radical, break with the reigns of Benedict XVI, John Paul II, and even Paul VI. To mention as much is tantamount to heresy in conservative Catholic circles, though liberal Catholics, the sort that expect the Holy Father to revamp the Church’s teachings on marriage and the family, have no problem identifying Francis as a “Radical Pope” destined to set the Barque of Peter on new course through the dark waters of (post)modernity.

The Roman Pontiff is the Vicar of Christ, not the Oracle of God — a point that Fr. John Hunwicke has found necessary to drive home again, and again, and again. And just recently Elliot Milco, editor of The Josias and maintainer of his own excellent web-log, has started a series of posts critiquing the new Ultramontanism. The first two parts are available here and here; a third part is still in the works. Read them both. In fact, read them both twice.

Perhaps all of this is quite a bit less true than when Carl Schmitt, in Roman Catholicism and Political Form pgs. 7-8, , first made these observations. (H/T Faith and Theology for saving me the time it would take to type them out.)

The Catholic Church is a complex of opposites, a complexio oppositorum. There appears to be no antithesis it does not embrace. . . . Ultimately, most important is that this limitless ambiguity combines with the most precise dogmatism and a will to decision as it culminates in the doctrine of papal infallibility.

From the standpoint of the political idea of Catholicism, the essence of the Roman-Catholic complexio oppositorum lies in a specific, formal superiority over the matter of human life such as no other imperium has ever known…. This formal character of Roman Catholicism is based on a strict realization of the principle of representation, the particularity of which is most evident in its antithesis to the economic-technical thinking dominant today[.]

The Church requires a political form. Without it there is nothing to correspond to its intrinsically representative conduct. The domination of ‘capital’ behind the scenes [of modern politics] is still no form, though it can undermine an existing political form and make it an empty façade. Should it succeed, it will have ‘depoliticized’ the state completely. Should economic thinking succeed in realizing its utopian goal and in bringing about an absolutely unpolitical condition of human society, the Church would remain the only agency of political thinking and political form. Then the Church would have a stupendous monopoly: its hierarchy would be nearer the political domination of the world than in the Middle Ages.

“Traditional Catholicism will either evolve or die a pathetic death as it slips further and further into self-parody and irrelevancy.”