Friday, May 15, 2020
Monday, May 11, 2020
Another old essay from seminary days...
On
Charity and Indifference
Dcn. Robert Miskell
…Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind…And…Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.[i]
Our
Lord, in answering the query posed by a Pharisaic scholar, defined the two
great, over-arching commandments of the Christian life. Man is called firstly, by his very nature, to
love God above all things, and with his entire being. He is called, secondly, to love his neighbor
as himself. Love is the heart of the
Christian Faith, for in its truest and purest form, charity, it is the essence
of God Himself. Indifference thus
becomes an enemy of the good, Christian life, being that vice whereby one fails
to reflect upon God and neglects the love that he properly owes Him. Today’s world is plagued by
indifference. It lies at the heart of
the problems faced by the Church in Her evangelical mission. To restore faithfulness to God and His
Church, the priest must strike out ever more bravely to combat this problem,
laboring diligently as that herald of truth and love which his vocation calls
him to be.[ii]
Charity
is the greatest of the theological virtues, the end toward which all other
virtues are directed. As St. Thomas
Aquinas teaches us, it flows from the relationship between the Persons of the
Holy Trinity. Divinity finds its ingenerate
source in the Father. From Him proceeds
His knowledge of Himself as God; this is the Word. Being in God, the Word is God. The Father loves His Son, the Word, and the
Word loves His Father. This love, being
in God as well, is also divine, as the Holy Spirit. This third Person is distinctively the infinite
love between the Father and the Son, proceeding forth from both as a third
divine Person. This divine love is
charity: the love of, and in, perfect goodness.
Charity cannot be separated or distinguished from God’s nature, for it
is inherent to His very being. As Man
grows in conformity to Christ, he develops a deeper participation in the loving
of God for God, and thus enters into the mysterious life of the Trinity, which
is charity.[iii]
The
Ten Commandments offer man a path to follow toward entry into this life of
divine loving. The first three are perhaps
the most important for our consideration here.
First, there is the divine self-revelation and the prohibition against
the honoring of other spirits or idols as gods:
I am the Lord thy God, who brought
thee out of the land of Egypt…Thou shalt not have strange gods before me…Thou
shalt not make to thyself a graven thing…Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve
them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous…[iv]
With this commandment, the
Lord lays down the fundamental law of existence and the ultimate responsibility
of all men: to love and serve Him as the only true God. As He reveals in Genesis, He created the whole
world from nothing. Even more, He made
Man in His own image, and gave him dominion over the earth, and all within
it. Man is thus ordered by the very form
of his being, and by gratitude for the gift of material lordship, to love his
Creator. With original sin, men fell
away from the proper observance of this grateful loving, this worship. At Sinai, the Most High reminded His people
Israel of their sacred duty.[v]
The Second Commandment
reiterates the reverence that is owed to God, particularly in speech. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy
God in vain.”[vi] This commandment is a natural consequence of
that which precedes it. God’s name is
sacrosanct. Like any name, it signifies
the identity of one. In this case, it
identifies the Creator of heaven and earth.
In invoking or considering God’s name, Man is called to the greatest
care and respect. To do violence to His
name, or misuse it profanely, is gravely sinful.[vii]
The Third Commandment
complements the First and Second.
“Remember that thou keep holy the sabbath day.”[viii] God is Creator and Lord, and His sacred name
is to be honored. The Sabbath day is a
holy time, set aside in the week for rest from worldly labors to permit
concentration on leisurely worship of the Lord.
Josef Pieper notes this true meaning of leisure, the freedom from
everyday concerns and responsibilities to pursue the cultic devotions proper to
men. God, in establishing His holy Sabbath,
gave Man a respite from the pains and strivings of his daily life so that he
might rest for a short while in the arms of His Lord. The Jewish observance, which we can still
witness, finds its perfection in the Sunday obligation of the Christian
Faith. The commemoration of the
historical Exodus gives way to the anamnesis
of the greater liberation of the Paschal Mystery. It is only right for Man to put aside his
lesser concerns and spend one day in reflection and worship of his God, and in
thanksgiving for the great gifts He has given us, not the least of which are
life and the Holy Eucharist, which itself is a gift unto perfect, eternal life.[ix]
The first three
Commandments give ultimate order to the life of Man. They reveal the identity of God as the one
divine Creator, and establish the essential attitudes or habits that are to be had
with regard to Him. Man is called to
love and worship the Lord, for He is the very source of existence. The remaining Commandments could be seen as
proceeding from the First, Second, and Third.
They reveal the sacred order of Creation, forged by divine Wisdom. The Fourth Commandment commands honor and
obedience to parents and other earthly authorities. Through the Fifth, Man is reminded of the
great sanctity of life itself. With the
Sixth, God’s moral plan for the continuity of human life and the unity of man
and woman is made clear. The Seventh
preserves justice among men in their dominion over the material world, whilst
the Eighth upholds the indispensability of truth. The Ninth and Tenth Commandments reiterate
the need for temperance in relation to things of this world. As the Catechism teaches us, the Decalogue
forms a unified whole. Through
reflection, we can see the wisdom and verity of this. The Commandments, being forged in the mind of
God, reflect the Son, Who is the eternal law.
Just as the eternal law unfolds in an exitus-reditus pattern, so too does the Decalogue. Beginning with God and descending through the
orderly unfolding of the Christian life, it also serves as a path to return to
God. The latter Commandments can be
deduced from the former, while one can discern the former through inductive
reflection upon the latter. Just as love
of God leads to love of neighbor, so also does the just and temperate love of
neighbor blossom in love of God. Through
both—the meeting of caritas and justitia--Creation reaches that perfect
peace and harmony which we know as the divine order, the existential expression
of the eternal law.[x]
Indifference militates
against this sacred order. It draws Man
away from loving God, and by extension, loving anything. Pieper, in meditating upon the theological
virtues, helps us to understand the genesis of this vice. As he explains, it is born from sloth, particularly
acedia. Acedia
is that sloth, or laziness, of the spiritual order. It is a particular vulnerability of those
committed to a life of contemplation.
Those dedicated to a life of prayer may, in moments of dryness or
desolation, submit to the temptation of acedia. This manifests itself initially in the
neglect of prayer, but if left unchecked, will spawn despair, the lack of
hope. This turning against hope becomes
a turning against love: this is indifference.
The one laboring under indifference neglects or refuses to
contemplate. He fails to recognize and
act upon his obligations both to love and to follow the wise and caritative
plan of God for his life.[xi]
Modernity has suffered
greatly from indifference, primarily through the development of indifferentism. Bound up historically with the heresy of
Modernism, one can trace it back to the early roots of rationalism and the centrifugal
individualism born of the Protestant Revolt.
Indifferentism, at heart, is a rejection or ignorance of objective
truth. Rationalism and skepticism
produced an abandonment of Scholastic ontology, and resulted in strange
metaphysical visions that would turn the order of Creation inside-out. Modern and contemporary philosophy would come
to proffer worlds existing more in the mind than in distinct reality. True knowledge of external things accordingly
became impossible. All sensed things
thus become shadows of the individual consciousness, rather than real things existing
in themselves with real natures that can be understood by the intellect.[xii]
Protestantism contributed
its own challenges to objective truth through its inherent individualism. Departing from the immemorial marriage of
Scripture and Tradition, the leaders of the “Reform” embraced a new approach to
worship and belief. Authority, rather
than being received from God hierarchically through His Church—and invested
primarily in the sacramental successors of the Apostles, the bishops—was now
born(e) in the conscience of each of the baptized. The Protestant was called to read the Bible
afresh for himself, and allow his own private conscience to dictate the final terms
of belief and religious practice. Without
a distinct, single Petrus to give
direction and unity, the Protestant heresies were fundamentally
centrifugal. In championing private
interpretation of the Word and electing it as a new magisterium, they tore
apart Christian unity at its very heart: truth.
Truth was no longer an objective reality to be discerned and received,
but rather a determination of the human individual.[xiii]
From these roots,
indifferentism burst forth upon the modern scene. Rooted in the vice of indifference, it was a
rejection of the exclusivity and objectivity of religious truth. Theologically, one can see how this error
turns one away from the path of salvation itself. Of the three Persons, the Holy Spirit is most
properly understood to be Love. As
observed earlier, the Third Person proceeds from the Father and Son as the
personified love of each for the other. Indifference,
as the abandonment of love, draws one away from the Spirit. As the Third Person is the Spirit of the Son,
indifference deprives one of communio
with Christ, Who is Truth. Thus, the
indifferent reject not only Love, but also Truth. In the end, if not converted, they lose their
only pathway to the Father, and thus Beatitude.
This is the true evil of indifferentism.
It falsely and selfishly treats all religions as spiritually equal, so
as to allow the individual to determine his own path to eternal happiness. Treating truth as a personal decision, it actually
denies truth any reality.[xiv]
Indifferentism
has had a toxic effect on the life of the Catholic Church over the past two
centuries. The Magisterium has striven
to fight this error. Pope Gregory XVI,
in Mirari vos, saw in the Modernist
vision of religious liberty the real threat:
Now We consider another abundant
source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted…indifferentism. This
perverse opinion is spread…that it is possible to obtain salvation of the soul
by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained.[xv]
Gregory’s judgment would be reconfirmed by
numerous successors, notably Bl. Pius IX and St. Pius X. They saw in the freedom(s) of conscience and
religion the Protestant ethic, and the destruction of true religion. The Second Vatican Council would seek to
pastorally address the question of salvation for those not enjoying full
communion with the Catholic Church in this world. Although acknowledging the importance of the
free embrace of the Catholic Faith, the Council’s teachings have been construed
by many as a rejection of the dogmatic principle of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.
This cast new fuel on the fires of indifferentism that were blazing.[xvi]
In
the wake of the Council, the Church has experienced remarkable challenges to
Her traditional teachings and ways of living out the Catholic life. The Holy See opened the way to engaging the
till-then Protestant efforts at ecumenism.
Although this has had some positive effects, it has also been the source
of considerable theological mischief. Liturgical
reform efforts, likewise, opened the spiritual lives of the faithful to
widespread abuses in the name of creativity, pastoral charity or generosity,
and (archaeologist) originality. Individualism
has undergirded many of these efforts, and, as a result, indifferentism has
followed. Ecumenism has led many to
believe that the schismatic sects are equal in dignity and truth with the
Catholic Church, and so the importance of remaining in communion with Her has been
seriously undermined in the hearts and minds of the faithful. At the same time, the loss of the sense of
the sacramentality and universality of Catholic worship has weakened the faith
of Catholics, and contributed to a critical decline in active worship.[xvii]
Indifferentism
is, sadly, alive and well amongst Catholics.
The clearest sign of this is the empty naves of parish churches on any
given Sunday. With the virtual collapse
of Catholic Sunday worship well underway in the West, Bl. John Paul II
contributed to its revitalization with his apostolic letter Dies Domini, meditating upon the
tradition and obligation of Sunday worship.
Holy Mass on the Lord’s Day bears living witness to our continuity with
our Jewish forbears, who held the Sabbath holy on Saturday in commemoration of
the Exodus. Catholics have fallen away
from observance of this obligation. In
pondering the reasons for this, we can only cite the varied causes we have
examined. In the end, they all lead back
to indifferentism, and thus indifference.
The cynical and scientistic mindset that prevails in today’s society has
given rise to an unprecedented popular agnosticism and atheism. For those who still recognize the reality of
God’s existence and rule, the question of ordering one’s life to His singular
road to Beatitude—the Catholic Faith—has become an uncertain one. Catholics have been adrift in an ocean of
poor catechesis and outright heresy for decades. There is grave uncertainty as to the real
responsibilities of the faithful, the trustworthiness of clergy, and the
fundamental truths, and reality, of sacra
doctrina.[xviii]
It is into this
environment that the priest must today daily enter. The evangelical mission of the priest is as
crucial today as it was in the days of the early Church and the past, historical
struggles with popular heresy. The presbyter is called to be Christ to
other men, to be an alter Christus. This is perhaps a more difficult task today
than in past centuries, due to the heavily atheistic tenor of the culture and
the considerable anticlericalism that has erupted in the wake of the
revelations of clerical sexual abuse. No
longer simply derided as a medieval anachronism, he is treated as a potential pedophilic
predator and a mouthpiece of moral and cosmological regressivism. Although he will not likely, by himself, be
able to overcome these misperceptions for all, he must not let them deter him
from exercising his ministry. The priest
must live the life of chaste love and truth that he is called to preach, and
thus lead both the baptized and unbaptized to Christ. He must recognize the challenge that he
faces. At its root, he faces a world
beset by indifferentism. It permeates
everything, from notions of freedom and morality—as Fr. Servais Pinckaers
explains—to questions of which religious community, if any, to attend on a
given weekend. Evangelization today,
whether it be a matter of first incidence or recovery, must recognize and
utilize all the possible means of communication available, particularly
Internet resources. Pope Benedict XVI
himself has advocated this approach. Information,
whether real or fictitious, travels with far greater speed and impact than in
any other century. This has so far
served the cause of indifferentism and cultural decline better than the cause
of the good. Reversing this trend will
take serious work on the part of Christians, and especially priests. The time of hiding in rectories is behind
us. Priests must engage the world. Homilies are not enough. The homily will only be heard by those who
already make the effort to worship God.
Providing of course for the judgment and permissions of bishops, priests
must seek out any and all opportunities to preach, to teach, and to dialogue
beyond the walls of the parish church.
Whether this be by blogging, newspaper columns, public lectures, or even
debate series, the Word must be spread to all.
The priest must be pastor of souls.
If he fails to evangelize the world, he will lose it. And if he chooses to lose it, he will answer
for this treacherous negligence before the throne of Jesus.[xix]
Indifference underlies
much of the trouble faced by the Church today.
This vice, this turning away from love, must be addressed and
healed. The only way to do so is to remind
the world of a great truth: God is love.
Pope Benedict XVI’s reign has been most instructive in this regard,
particularly in the choice for his first encyclical, Deus caritas est. Everything
comes from God, the source of being. And
God is love. Creation itself was one
great act of love by Him Who is Love. Everything
comes back to love. This is the
principle that must inform every effort of evangelization in the Church
today. While we must definitely teach
about the true nature of love, we must act with evident caritas. There is no room
left for arrogance in the preaching of God’s love and wisdom. Every priest must live the Gospel with a
heart of charity and fatherly affection.
Only by living love in truth will Christians be able to break the hold
that indifference, and its attendant indifferentism, has on the hearts and
minds of today’s society.[xx]
[i]
St. Matthew, xxii: 37, 39 (Douay-Rheims).
[ii] Catechism of the Catholic Church ed. 2
(Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1997), 2094. This shall hereafter be abbreviated as CCC.
[iii] St.
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. Summa Theologica.
Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Allen, TX: Thomas More
Publishing, 1948), Ia, q. 20, 26-44, IIa IIae, q. 23-27; Brian Davies, O.P. The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford,
England: Oxford University Press, 1993), 288-289. The Summa
shall hereafter be abbreviated as ST.
[iv]
Exodus, xx: 2-5 (Douay-Rheims).
[v] CCC, 2084-2140.
[vi]
Exodus, xx: 7 (Douay-Rheims).
[vii] CCC, 2142-2167.
[viii]
Exodus, xx: 8 (Douay-Rheims).
[ix] CCC, 2168-2195; Josef Pieper. Leisure, the Basis of Culture. Trans.
Gerald Malsbary (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998), 3-60.
[x]
Exodus, xx: 1-17 (Douay-Rheims); CCC,
2052-2557.
[xi] Josef
Pieper. On Hope. Trans. Mary Francis
McCarthy, S.N.D. Faith, Hope, Love
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), 113-123; Josef Pieper. On Love. Trans. Richard and Clara
Winston. Faith, Hope, Love (San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), 227-229.
[xii]
William A. Wallace, O.P. The Elements of
Philosophy (Staten Island, NY: Society of St. Paul, 1977), 288-332; R. R.
Palmer et al. A History of the Modern
World ed. 9 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 265-612.
[xiii]
Hilaire Belloc. The Great Heresies
(Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991), 97-142; Palmer, A History of the Modern World, 77-186.
[xiv] Davies,
Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 288-289.
[xv] Gregory
XVI. Mirari vos. Trans. Bernard A.
Hausmann, S.J. Ed.Anthony J. Minoni, Jr. The
Popes Against Modern Errors (Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc.,
1999), 13 (p. 7).
[xvi]
Bl. Pius IX. Syllabus of Errors. Ed.
Anthony J. Minoni. The Popes Against
Modern Errors (Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1999),
consulted; St. Pius X. Pascendi Dominici
gregis. Ed. Anthony J. Minoni. The
Popes Against Modern Errors (Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc.,
1999), consulted; II Vatican Council. Lumen
gentium. Ed. Austin Flannery, O.P. (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing
Company, 2004), 1-17.
[xvii]
Philip Trower. Turmoil & Truth
(Oxford, England: Family Publications, 2003), 5-199.
[xviii]
Bl. John Paul II. Dies Domini. Trans.
Holy See (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1998), 1-85.
[xix] Servais
Pinckaers, O.P. Sources of Christian
Ethics ed. 3. Trans. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P. (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 1995),327-353; Benedict XVI. Message for 44th World Day of Communications (January
24, 2010). Available: http://storico.radiovaticana.va/en1/storico/2010-01/351480_pope_benedict_s_message_for_44th_world_day_of_communications.html
(Accessed: December 21, 2012).
[xx] Benedict
XVI. Deus caritas est. Trans. Holy
See (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2006), consulted.
An essay that I once wrote to a fellow seminarian, to better answer a question...
Ecclesia monarchia est:
On the
Monarchical Constitution of the Catholic Church
Robert Lathlaen
Thomas-Becket Miskell, M.A.
One of the more controversial
truths of Catholic ecclesiology, particularly for today’s society, is that
Jesus Christ founded His Church with a monarchical constitution. Even Catholics today may find the idea unpalatable,
when considered in these terms. This is
due to the enormous influence of the (so-called) Enlightenment upon today’s
culture. The current predisposition
toward popular government is sustained largely by a revolutionary patriotism
and historicism that often hinders the openness of individuals to thinking in a
temporally or nationally transcendent manner, especially with regard to
traditional, monarchical forms of governance.
The capacity to recognize the objective good of monarchy is inhibited by
a modernist enculturation that has indoctrinated people into believing that
monarchy is inherently repressive. It is
further held that its foundational principle—that the right to rule is a gift
given from heaven to specific individuals—is false and backward. Current society, instead, champions the idea
that all authority derives from the ruled.
An orthodox Catholic Christian cannot hold this modernist view,
especially when considering the perfect society of the Church. Pope Leo XIII, the father of modern Catholic
social doctrine, makes this clear in his encyclical Diuturnum.[i]
First, we should consider the
nature of monarchy itself. What
constitutes monarchy? Lester J. Bartson
III, reflecting upon its Greek etymology, has defined monarchy as essentially
the primacy of one within a defined society.
As he explains, monarchy comes
from the root words monos (one) and arkhé (first, prime). Monarchy, thus, is the situation when a
single individual holds a position of primacy, of "firstness". The monarch is first in honor, in prestige,
in authority, etc. Bartson distinguishes
monarchy from dictatorship, also with reference to the Classical Greek. Dictatorship is signified by monocracy, the combination of monos (one) and kratos (might, power).
Monocracy is thus the might or power of one. Monocracy is merely the capacity of one to
command obedience, without a moral reference.
Monarchy, on the other hand, is an inherently moral situation. It can exist without a simultaneous monocracy
(there can be a monarch without absolute political power). Similarly, monocracy can, and often does,
exist without a real, monarchical moral authority residing in the monocrat;
this is dictatorship. Monocracy is
defined by power, and monarchy, by authority, the moral right to govern and establish. The distinction between authority and power
is key. Authority, which derives solely from God, is the inherently moral right
to command and expect obedience.
Practical political power, however, relies upon the activity of the
ruled. Thus, practical, earthly might is
seen in the will and responsiveness of the people, but not authority.[ii] Bartson further clarifies this with his five
criteria for monarchy. They are:
1. Religious
primacy
2. Judicial
primacy
3. Military
primacy
4. Simultaneity
of function
5. Expectation
of succession[iii]
These categories of primacy have
flexibility. For example, there are
often cases where kings do not hold the full primacy in either military or religious
affairs, such as the early Germanic kings (who were not always the chief war leaders)
or the seventeenth-century, absolutist Catholic monarchs (who always
acknowledged the papal primacy in spiritual matters). The key is that monarchs hold a unique
position of honor and moral influence with respect to these three areas of
life, that their authority is simultaneous in each function, and that there is
a common, cultural expectation of monarchical succession. This last aspect is rooted in the
fundamentally paternal character of monarchy, as witnessed throughout the
world’s history and upheld by cultural anthropology.[iv]
A crucial question with regard
to the distinction of monarchy is that of the importance of hereditary
succession. It is certainly an important
and common characteristic of monarchia,
as it reaffirms its inherently familial orientation. However, this form of societal organization
is not strictly hereditary in application.
There have been numerous examples of electoral succession. First, in the temporal sphere, one can cite
the Roman emperorship (which was officially at the will of the Senate), the
Holy Roman emperorship, the kingship of the Poles, the accession of the Capetian
dynasty, etc. In the ecclesiastical
realm, one can begin with the traditional abbatial constitution of monasteries. Abbots have customarily been elected by their
brother monks, been confirmed by bishops or popes, and ruled their houses as
royal, priestly fathers. The papacy is
the ultimate example, for the popes are elected by the Sacred College and
possess supreme authority, singularly.
Monarchy, as a concept, has a
complicated history. It has a more fluid
application today, particularly when one observes its etymology strictly. It is now effectively interchangeable with
the term kingship, and it is really
through the lens of kingship that one studies most of historical monarchy. In its earlier Christian application, monarchia had a grander meaning. The monarch, originally, was truly one who was
prime, in a global context. As best
demonstrated by Dante Alighieri’s De
Monarchia, monarchy was understood to constitute the authority of one over
the whole (known) world. Alighieri was
reflecting upon the Holy Roman Emperor as the inheritor of the Roman Empire’s
claim to world governance or overlordship.
The Church condemned De Monarchia
to the Index, as it constituted a threat to papal authority. It has been said that the work’s vision of
monarchy is orthodox, so long as it is envisaged in the Person of Jesus Christ,
the true monarch. Early Christian usage
of monarchia, therefore, should be
understood in the original context of emperorship, or the singular overlordship
of all nations. With the renewal of
Catholic interest in Roman law during the late eleventh and early twelfth
century, the language of emperorship, and thus monarchy, became more
diffuse. Various kings, such as those of
France, England, and Leon, together with the high kings of Ireland, asserted
their independence from the Holy Roman Empire by claiming an imperial authority
within the context of their own kingdoms.
Monarchy, therefore, gradually came to be understood as the character of
any singularly prime authority, for each such ruler enjoys temporal sovereignty
over his own land, at least in law.[v]
The monarchical character of the
Catholic Church finds its ultimate foundation in the divine monarchy of the
Holy Trinity, long expressed in the iconography of Jesus as the
Pantokrator. Pope Pius XI reminded the
world of Christ’s kingly rule of the Church and the world in his encyclical Quas Primas, whereby he established the
Solemnity of Christ the King. [vi] The visible Church is ordered monarchically
through the Petrine ministry. Pope St. Pius X makes this explicit in his letter
Ex quo, nono to various Eastern
archbishops apostolic delegates:
…de Ecclesiae
constitutione…primo renovator error a decessore Nostro Innocentio X iamdiu
damnatus…quo suadetur, S. Paulum haberi tanquam fratrem omnio parem S. Petro;
—deinde non minori falsitate inicitur
persuasion, Ecclesiam catholicam non fuisse primis saeculis principatum unius,
hoc est monarchiam…[vii]
The English translation provided in the
reprint of Denzinger’s thirtieth edition is:
…first of all an error, long
since condemned by Our predecessor, Innocent X, is being renewed…, in which it
is argued that St. Paul is held as a brother entirely equal to St. Peter;—then,
with no less falsity, one is invited to believe that the Catholic Church was
not in the earliest days a sovereignty of one person, that is a monarchy…[viii]
His Holiness follows the old convention
of defining matters negatively, by positing errors so as to highlight the
truth. Here, it requires thoughtful
reading. In reminding the archbishops of
the previously condemned error that the Church was originally not a monarchy
(in the person of St. Peter), he is affirming that the Church was, in fact—from
Her earliest days—a monarchy, by reason of the special ministry assigned to
Simon Peter by Jesus Christ. On the
authority of this sainted modern pope, we can continue to rightly define the
Catholic Church as a monarchy, through God’s own divine rule and the pope’s
vicarious rule as the Successor of Peter.
Together with their supreme
spiritual authority, the Supreme Pontiffs bear the fullness of temporal authority
in the global sense, although they do not have the ordinary, executive use
thereof. This is a striking statement,
and has a long and contentious history. Basically,
it has two roots. First, it was long
argued on the basis of the Donatio Constantini,
which the majority scholarly opinion still holds spurious. Most are still willing to admit its having
underlying historical precedents, and its land grants were repeatedly
reaffirmed by successive emperors.
Second, it is more validly understood as being comprehended within the
supreme spiritual authority of the Petrine ministry. Considering this in Thomistic terms, it
resembles the understanding we have of the human, intellective soul. Rather than having multiple souls,
corresponding to the varying powers of the human person, man has a single,
intellective soul that comprehends, or contains, within the higher intellective
soul such lower material powers as vegetation and locomotion. The spiritual imperium, being of a higher order, can be understood to contain or
have within itself the fullness of the powers and authorities of the lower
temporal order. Due to the special, high
priestly character of the Petrine ministry, the Supreme Pontiff does not have
the ordinary execution of his imperial
authority, but delegates it to suitable, non-ordained persons. This is an older vision, and is not spoken of
much today, but it was part of the longstanding exposition of the papal
authority and cannot be discarded out of hand, as that would be a clear rupture.[ix]
Connected to this grand vision
of pontifical authority is the particular temporal power of the popes over the
Patrimony of St. Peter, or the Papal States for short. These were lands granted originally by
Constantine the Great and expanded over the centuries. Despite the efforts of many to deprive the
Holy See of temporal sovereignty by force, or to deny Her the right to them,
the Church has held strong to the need for papal temporal sovereignty. It is, in fact, a Magisterially condemned
proposition to suggest that the Pope should not have an independent political
state of his own. The Holy See requires
this situation in order to assure the full freedom of the Magisterium to
preserve the faith and the unity of the Church.
Also, it is consonant with the proper prestige of the Supreme Pontiff to
be a temporal sovereign, with the earthly majesty that accompanies such an
honor. This further allows the Holy
Father to be the model of virtuous principality for the world. However, appealing again to the Gospel of St.
Matthew and the aforementioned letter of St. Pius X, it is not in the temporal
authority that the monarchical character of the papacy (and the Church)
primarily lies, but in the special, spiritual commission of the Lord Jesus to
Simon Peter. [x]
One may ask what value there is
in defining the Church, and the papacy, as a monarchy. It certainly would not be considered the most
pastoral approach in our heavily democratist age, but it is important for
reminding the faithful of the timeless truths of God and nature. Whereas man can go through varying periods of
obedience and rebelliousness, God does not change. He established Creation in a hierarchical
fashion. The peak of the hierarchy of
being is God, Who is esse subsistens. Thomistic metaphysics prefers the term analogy, but the effect is basically the
same; created being and essence have a visibly hierarchical structure. Likewise, God ordered the government of the
universe in a hierarchical manner, with His monarchy as the guiding principle. Traditional societies have practically all
witnessed to this reality in their organic development. Historical and politico-anthropological
studies show that early cultures developed their sense of authority primarily
on the basis of fatherhood, which blossomed into kingship. With (very) rare exceptions, populist regimes
have been the fruit of revolutions, which by nature reject the spiritually-based
monarchical forms and favor the secular idea of popular sovereignty. We find this among the Greeks and Romans, and
later in the turbulent revolutions of the modern world. The American Revolution is not innocent on
this count. Driven by the rationalist
ideals of the “Enlightenment”, it rejected the divine basis of political
authority, preferring to assign the source of authority (the moral right to
command obedience) to the people. Although
the American Republic early on professed its devotion to God as sole king, the restless
movement of revolution has continued toward virtual state atheism.[xi]
As Catholics, we must uphold the
Scriptural truth that all authority, including political authority, comes from
God, rather than men. Many in the
contemporary Catholic Church, purportedly following the mind of Bl. John Paul
II, have worked to make the Church a mouthpiece of political democratism. Although this has a tradition even among the
earlier Jesuits, due to an overzealous papalism, it has evidently undermined
the effectiveness of and obedience due to the Magisterium. It also has the danger of introducing a
disunifying, relational dualism into our understanding of the human
person. John Paul placed great emphasis
on the familial ordering of man and society, but at the same time he favored
democracy, which is inherently contrary to that understanding. Modern democracy is grounded upon a liberal
interpretation of individual freedom, one that makes political society a
collection of individuals who form a contractual association and relinquish
authority over themselves to an elected regime.
This is not in line with the familial character of man; nor does it
follow the teaching of Leo XIII. As the
Scriptures and the traditional teaching of the Church shows, we are to
understand society as the greater family, and that includes the political
dimension. Monarchical government best
reflects this in its paternal character.
Furthermore, the traditional understanding that political authority is a
gift from Heaven to a “greater father” (the monarch)—something added to basic
human freedom and individual self-governance—better preserves both the dignity
of man and the sanctity of authority.
Rather than individuals feeling that they must relinquish part of
themselves, they can order themselves toward a higher authority that personifies
God’s loving attention to them.[xii]
As a culture, we are spiritually
poorer because of populism. Just as it
ensnared the minds of men in terms of secular politics, so has it now become a
serious problem in ecclesiastical politics.
The Church, like the State, is a polity.
It is true that the Church is different in essence from the State, but
the basic structures of life properly remain the same. Nature is a hierarchy, both in the spiritual
and material realms. The human person,
as a composite of spirit and body, is bound to both. The unity of the person demands that both
components reflect a hierarchical and familial character. If the spiritual realm is ordered vertically
toward God, so must also be the material.
If contemporary popes and prelates, in their expressed opinions, begin
to treat one element of human life as non-familial and populistic, it is only
logical for the faithful to consider other elements as negotiable in this
direction. The drive for democratism in
the political order has crossed over into its ecclesiological complement. The answer to this attempted revolution lies
in reaffirming traditional teaching about nature, authority, and the true unity
of the human person. With St. Pius X, we
must reaffirm the truth that is uncomfortable to democentric ears: Ecclesia monarchia est.
[i] Romans
xiii: 1-5; St. Gelasius I, Pope. Letter to Emperor Anastasius (494). Ed. E.
Schwartz. Trans. Brian Tierney: The
Crisis of Church and State 1050-1300 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2002), 13-14; Bl. Pius IX, Pope. Qui Pluribus (1846), 4, 22; St. Pius X,
Pope. Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907),
38; Leo XIII, Pope. Diuturnum (1881),
5. Holy Scripture, and the long
traditional teaching of the Church, represented by these sources, clearly supports
the divine origin of human political authority, rather than the modernist, democratic
principle.
[ii]
Lester J. Bartson III, Ph.D. is a retired professor of ancient history and
former chair of the History Department at the University of Massachusetts at
Boston. A specialist in the history of
monarchy, he was my mentor and supervised my undergraduate thesis: Birth, Baptism, and Confirmation: The
Origins and Development of Sacral Kingship in Western Christendom. The information used here is drawn from notes
for his course Monarchs, People and
History, which I took in the spring semester of 1999. Prof. Bartson, a Canadian-American, served
for years as head of his local branch of the Canadian Monarchist League. He retired to Canada in 2005.
[iii]
Ibid.
[iv]
Ibid.
[v] Dante
Alighieri. De Monarchia. Trans. Prue
Shaw (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996), introduction, bks.
1-3; James Bryce. The Holy Roman Empire
(London: MacMillan and Co., 1890), 104-107, 182-195; Ernst H. Kantorowicz. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval
Political Theology (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 97.
[vi] Pius
XI, Pope. Quas Primas (1925), 7-21.
[vii]
St. Pius X, Pope. Ex quo, nono
(1910). Errores Orientalium. Ed.
Heinrich Denzinger and Adolf Schönmetzer: Enchiridion Symbolorum: Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et
Morum ed. 36 (Barcelona: Herder, 1976), 3555.
[viii]
St. Pius X, Pope. Ex quo (1910). Certain Errors of the Orientals. Ed.
Heinrich Denzinger and Karl Rahner, S.J.: Enchiridion
Symbolorum: Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum ed. 30.
Trans. Roy J. Deferrari: The Sources of
Catholic Dogma (Fitzwilliam, NH: Loreto Publications, 2007), 2147a.
[ix] St.
Gregory VII, Pope. Dictatus Papae (1075),
1, 8-9; Summa Imperatoriae Majestate
(1175-1178). Ed. Brian Tierney: The Crisis
of Church and State 1050-1300 (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2002), 120; Rufinus. Commentary on Dist. 22 c. 1. Summa Decretorum. Ed. Brian Tierney: The Crisis of Church and State 1050-1300 (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2002), 119-120; Innocent III, Pope. Sermon on the
consecration of a pope. Ed. Brian Tierney: The
Crisis of Church and State 1050-1300
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 131-132; Innocent III, Pope.
Letter to the prefect Acerbus and the nobles of Tuscany (1198). Ed: Brian
Tierney: The Crisis of Church and State
1050-1300 (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2002), 132; Aegidius Romanus, Archbishop of Bourges. De Ecclesiastica Potestate, I: 2-5, 7-9,
II: 4-10, 12-15, III: 4-10; William A. Wallace, O.P. The Elements of Philosophy (New York: Fathers and Brothers of the
Society of St. Paul, 1977), 80-84; Bl. Pius IX, Pope. Syllabus of Errors, 24-27, 75-76.
[x] Matthew
xvi: 18-19; St. Pius X Ex quo, nono
(DS 3555); Bl. Pius IX, Syllabus,
24-27, 75-76.
[xi] St.
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. Summa Theologiae,
I q. 2-6, I q. 9; Wallace, 88-90, 125-126, 131-132, 208; Chester G. Starr. A
History of the Ancient World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 13;
Mason Hammond and Lester J. Bartson. The
City in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972),
15, 22; Aristotle. Politics. Trans.
C. D. C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing Company, 1998) i: 2; Raymond Scupin
and Christopher R. DeCorse. Anthropology:
A Global Perspective: Second Edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,
Inc., 1995), 82, 139, 170, 174-175, 178-180, 260-261, 373, 379-381; Robert
Miskell. Thesis: Birth, Baptism, and
Confirmation: The Origins and Development of Sacral Kingship in Sacral Kingship
(Department of History, University of Massachusetts Boston, 2002), 4-7; Bernard
Bailyn. The Ideological Origins of the
American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 1992), 22-320. This selection of consulted sources is only a
beginning, due to the limited purpose of this essay.
[xii] Pontifical
Council for Justice and Peace. Compendium
of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Washington: USCCB Publishing, 2007), 390,
395; Bl. John Paul II, Pope. Centesimus
Annus, 46; Johann P. Sommerville. “Introduction”. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought: Filmer: Patriarcha
and Other Writings (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1999),
xv-xvi; Bl. John Paul II, Pope. “On the Family”. Go in Peace: A Gift of Enduring Love. Ed. Joseph Durepos (Chicago:
Loyola Press, 2003), 143-166; Leo XIII Diuturnum,
1-27; Catechism of the Council of Trent
(Roman Catechism), III: 4.
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