Pope Francis, the New Face of the Catholic Church, Needs To Maintain His Flexibility
It’s hard to count all the important upgrades in the policies of the Catholic Church that Pope Francis has made. After 1600 years of virtually no change, the church has now turned around on dozens of issues, and has put on a distinctly humanitarian face with respect to the rules its parishioners must accept. Good examples of this are climate change mitigation, income inequality, and LGBT rights.
Yet it’s troubling that this renaissance appears to topped off. Yesterday, the pontiff announced that women will not be admitted as priests–now, or ever. Of course, never is a long time, and it’s hard to imagine that a certain doctrine, built as it is on an arbitrary notion, i.e., that women lack essential characteristics that would qualify them for the clergy, could possibly remain in place until the “end of days.”
More troubling is what the Pope’s decree suggests about other critically important positions that govern the quality of life for humankind, e.g., those regarding birth control and family planning. If the predominant religion in the developing world forbids intercourse in the absence of reproduction, it may remain impossible for humankind to put an upward limit on the population of the planet. This, of course, means ever-increasing human suffering as more burden is placed upon resource availability and the capacity for the environment to support life.
In this case as well, we all need to hope that the idea of a doctrine’s “never” changing needs to be interpreted figuratively, and that the enormously powerful force represented by the Catholic Church will rethink its stance on the important ingredients that go into creating a sustainable way of life for humanity and the environment in which it lives.
I am a member of the Episcopal Church. It’s official position is that it does not have a monopoly on truth and that doctrine is subject to change as new knew knowledge becomes available. It also encompasses a rather wide range of viewpoints.
Way back in the early 1990s, I took some Bible study classes at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in San Diego. The study guide was the Kerygma series of the Presbyterian Church. We sat around a table discussing what we had read. There were often differences of opinion, but no one became upset about it.
Each parish is run by a vestry which is elected by the members. If the parish is financially independent, the vestry has the authority to hire and fire the priest. Bishops are elected, including the Presiding Bishop.
The Roman Church is very different. It is ruled from above and the members, at least in theory, have no voice in matters. The Bishop of Rome, aka the Pope, is believed to be infallible, although it is not completely clear on which matters he is infallible. That appears to be kept a bit vague while attempting to make it look clear. Under the circumstances, the Roman Church cannot be expected to change its doctrines in ways which could endanger its doctrine of infallibility. For example, if the Bishop of Rome changed a doctrine, that could imply that the previous doctrine, which was established by a previous Bishop of Rome and upheld by his successors, was wrong, thereby endangering the doctrine of infallibility.
The current Bishop of Rome is like a breath of fresh air. It is impossible to know whether he believes the doctrine of infallibility. He has changed the emphasis of church doctrines, but has been very careful not to change doctrines. It may be that he doesn’t dare to go any farther.
Frank,
You appear to have a Protestant view of the Roman Church. For many centuries the Roman Church was the only stable and enlightened authority in Western Europe. Many of the rituals and doctrines reflect the long periods when the church was also the state, or a least equal to secular authority. Many of organizations are more similar to the bureaucracy of a nation state than a spiritual organization.
Nor is the Roman Catholic church one unified organization, many of the orders are semi-autonomous and only tenuously subject to the authority of Rome. The College of Cardinals also wields great power and authority, in rivalry to the Vatican secretariat.
The Pontiff’s authority is not absolute in all matters, and doctrines can change by such instruments as a Vatican Council etc.
While the Pope is considered to be infalible in defining doctrine regarding faith and morals, that doesn’t extend to all Papal decrees or rulings. Nor do such rulings bind future Popes who may rule differently. (Much like a constitutional court).
Local congragations can request the removal of a Priest oe even Bishop, but only from that area. Only Rome can remove a Preis’st right to preach or conduct mass.
Non-Catholics often make the mistake of execting the very old Catholic church to follow modern democratic rules and concepts. If the Church were to do so, it wou no longer be Roman, just another Protestant splinter group.
I’m not a Catholic, my familiy became Church of England, with the acession of Elizabeth the First, supporting Parliment, but loyal to the restoration, and supporters of Catholic emancipation) My eldest son converted to Catholism and I respect the right of the Roman Church to follow their own, ancient, ways.
Marco,
When you say that you are not Catholic, I assume that what you really mean is that you are not Roman Catholic.
Recently there was an Internet test to ascertain religious knowledge. The test covered much material about various religions. According to the test, the people who got the highest scores were atheists. It was really shocking how low the scores were. I got a very high score which would seem to indicate that I’m better informed than most people. Probably that is because I’ve made a point of learning about other churches, Judaism, and Islam.
As most of us know, the Roman Church had a long history of persecution. Of course that is not the only church which engaged in persecution; other churches did so also and probably would have done more so if they had had the capability. The basic problem is the corrupting influence of power. And, when a church claims absolute authority, its potential for persecution and corruption is increased.
It is true that the Roman Church is less catholic than many people, including its members, are aware because they simply have not come into contact with practices in other countries. The same could be said for other denominations. Because I’ve been to Anglican churches in Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, and many different Episcopal parishes here in the U.S., I am more aware of the variations within the Anglican Communion than most people are. Now that the Episcopal Church is in communion with the Lutheran Church, there is even more variation. I don’t see that as a problem, but it’s interesting.
There are fundamentalist churches which try to impose their will on everyone, including non-members. Even now they are pushing for exemptions from civil rights laws and laws which require medical insurance to cover family planning. So clearly the Roman Church is not the only church which continues to try to impose its will on everyone. At least it no longer has people burned alive at the stake and there is no longer an inquisition.
In the early church, sex was considered sinless only within marriage and only when it was for the purpose of reproduction, but the couple was supposed to try to have as little pleasure as possible. If it was not for reproduction but nothing was done to prevent reproduction, it was considered to be a minor sin which could be forgiven. But of anything was done to prevent reproduction, that was considered to be a major sin which could not be forgiven. So far as I am aware, the Roman Church has not changed that doctrine.
Much can be learned about the history of Christianity from reading books which are not basically about religion. Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” and Norwich’s three books on the history of the Byzantium Empire are especially good. That’s because there was no separation of church and state so the books by necessity have to cover much of church history. I also suggest reading “The Confessions of St. Augustine of Hippo”; it’s available on the Internet in both Latin and English. It covers much of Roman Catholic doctrine in the early church. Interestingly, in his day, it was widely believed that sins committed after baptism could not be forgiven, so baptism was often delayed until as near death as possible.
As I see it, great emphasis should be put on the Summary of the Law. Many theologians see that as the ENTIRE law and everything else as commentary. I’m inclined to agree.