Orthodox & infallible?
Garvey, John
Of several minds: John Garvey ORTHODOX & INFALLIBLE? THE LONG HAUL IS OUR ONLY FINAL GUIDE THE debate between the Vatican and dissident theologians has not really been a debate at all, but...
...Their objections were not answered, Dollinger and Old Catholics (as they were forced to become) were excommunicated, and dissident bishops subsided into silence about a doctrine whose proclamation they accepted unhappily but loyally, to keep a united front against secular forces which seemed to them even more threatening than ecclesiastical absolutism...
...As unfashionable as the idea of absolute truths may be, it is not stupid to wonder what criteria to use in figuring out who might be tel' ling you the truth...
...I will not argue the moral difficulties surrounding Humanae Vitae and the papal teaching of birth control...
...it is certainly ignored by whoever handles Vatican finance...
...Perhaps one day the declaration of Vatican I, and the temporary acceptance of the idea of papal infallibility, will be regarded as we now regard the teachings of Pope Honorius and the declarations of councils whose ideas we no longer accept—as a falling away from orthodoxy, eventually righted by people who appeared, for awhile, to be dissidents...
...THE LONG HAUL IS OUR ONLY FINAL GUIDE THE debate between the Vatican and dissident theologians has not really been a debate at all, but a non-conversation in two different languages, both designed for declaiming...
...it is too passionate an issue, and both sides now seem firmly set in their opinions...
...The problems that council raised are more in evidence now than they have been in years...
...If Jesus was divine...
...They have remained Orthodox for two thousand years without it, and Rome does not question the orthodoxy of the Orthodox churches...
...Catholics are expected to trust the papacy as an institution which is not only uniquely responsible for Catholic tradition, but one which is divinely protected...
...It is a peculiarly Catholic fight, and it must look funny to outsiders, especially in the case of the Vatican vs...
...The official line had it that Vatican I ended the question forever, but the fact is that a great many Catholic theologians, scripture scholars, and historians do not believe in papal infallibility, or they interpret it in ingenious ways—for example, by saying that the pope can be said to speak infallibly only when he speaks the mind of the church...
...or if his followers were disappointed men and women who covered up Jesus's Commonweal: 454 failure with their own deception—and all of these "if s" cover a number of theories about who he was—it makes a difference...
...In connection with the Orthodox it can also be asked, why have they not needed this ministry of infallibility...
...Here humility meets humility with no holds barred, in the best tradition of combative piety, one side questioning the honesty, honor, loyalty, or piety of the other, all the time protesting filial or paternal concern...
...so did Acton...
...One group speaks of the importance of conformity to defined Catholic doctrine, ignoring the problems which arise here because of historical inconsistencies...
...To believe this requires some playing around with Vatican I. Chapter three of Pastor Aeternus firmly rejects the idea that an ecumenical council can be appealed to as "an authority higher than that of the Roman Pontiff," and closes by anathematizing anyone who denies the pope's "full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal church, not only in those things which belong to faith and morals, but also in those things which belong to the discipline and government of the church spread throughout the world...
...Some of the examples are familiar ones: the condemnation of usury—which was not defined as excessive interest on money, but any interest at all—has been allowed to slip away...
...The fact is that papal statements made in matters of faith and morals have been contradicted by later church statements...
...In our century we have seen Nazism, the Gulag, and Jonestown...
...the precedent was noted by Hitler's racist scholars...
...But it is the job of bishops—and in the most conservative view the unique job of Rome—to decide whether teachings advanced as Catholic are fact in accord with Catholic tradition...
...The importance of the papacy is early and apparent, but a papacy with absolute jurisdiction was fought from the beginning, in the West as well as in the East...
...to mean the papacy is founded on Peter's leadership, this fact was ignored...
...Also condemned is the proposition that the pope "possesses merely the principal part, and not the fullness of this supreme power.'' (This is certainly in the spirit of Pius IX, who was not known for humility or a sense of proportion...
...Apart from the obvious moral and philosophical problems surrounding the definition of infallibility— not the least of which was praise for a state of mind labeled "the sacrifice of the intellect"—there were historical problems: contradictions, for example, between the declarations of councils which met all the accepted criteria for legitimate and therefore infallible ecumenical councils, and later Catholic belief which rejected the conclusions of those councils...
...One way of being Catholic grew up around the idea of papal infallibility...
...In addition, many of those who opposed a strong central church government were reactionary, nationalistic, and concerned even more obviously than Pius IX with their own rights as bishops...
...John garvey Commonweal: 456...
...but they go on to say that this can be known only when the church has declared itself in council or (since councils themselves have sometimes been contradicted by later Catholic belief) over the long haul...
...on the whole they have been good ones...
...Lord Acton, his teacher Dollinger, and a few dissident Catholic bishops expressed objections to it at the first Vatican Council...
...That question is the question of infallibility...
...the idea that one can have a final statement of' 'the way things are," or that the truth can be caught in a proposition, is full of the optimism of nineteenth century scientism...
...An Inquiry deserve an answer...
...Theologians have every civil right to believe and teach whatever they like...
...Unquestionable claims to authority, religious or secular, are deservedly unpopular...
...There is certainly a point here...
...Hans Kii'ng...
...Infallibility itself is a peculiarly nineteenth century idea...
...The moral problem involved with the claim to infallibility is a profound one, but first there is the question of historical contradiction...
...It seems ironic now, but there were liberal Catholics who supported a strong papacy because they feared the rise of the nation state, and believed that the papacy would offer an important counterweight...
...Although no father of the church, Eastern or Western, reads Matthew's "Thou art Peter...
...And although it is easy to see at this distance a conflict between the forces of progress and the forces of repression, many European liberals who opposed the power of the papacy were also anti-religious...
...Kii'ng mentions this problem...
...he swung them around...
...Dollinger, Lord Acton's teacher, was excommunicated, and Acton expected that he himself would be: he had lobbied against the definition, and although he did not publicly oppose it, he never accepted it...
...It makes a difference to how we see our own lives and live them, in the light of his life and death and resurrection...
...While it is true that in Hans Kii'ng the Vatican has a critic who seems to relish provocation, it is also true that the historical questions he raised in Infallible...
...I will only point out that the Humanae Vitae controversy underscores the fact that the Vatican expects Catholics to accept its "non-infallible" decisions as binding, as well as its "infallible" ones...
...Job's comforters, on the other hand, were full of certainty...
...That is not enough...
...But they cannot be trusted simply because they are popes or councils, or because they are speaking of doctrine, or faith, or morals...
...There was important dissent at Vatican I. However, the majority of the bishops were in favor of the definition, some out of genuine and enthusiastic theological conviction, others because they saw in a strengthened papacy the only hope against the threat of secularism...
...the other speaks of human rights and the need for freedom of inquiry, without addressing the important questions of doctrinal consistency, the authority of tradition, and orthodoxy...
...The issue of infallibility was raised passionately, debated passionately, and pressure (including the use of excommunication) was used against opponents of papal power, including those who questioned the right of the pope to the papal states...
...The Council of Florence declared that anyone not in communion with Rome was certainly damned, and singled out Jews and Orthodox Christians...
...In its various root meanings the word signifies "true teachings," "true glory," and "true worship...
...Questioning an opponent's motives, piety, or loyalty to the church really does not constitute an answer...
...Orthodoxy doesn't happen without a feeling for tradition as a living language, and this includes the rich mediation across a range of possible ways of thinking which is one meaning of tradition...
...Christianity is not just a style of doing things or a happy conglomeration of truces between various ways of being Christian...
...But there is a use of history which should not be acceptable to honest folk...
...or not divine...
...Graham Greene has compared being a Catholic with being a dedicated Communist: you accept the inquisition (or the purge trials) because you believe in an idea which transcends the mistakes made along the way...
...if he was a luminously enlightened human being who was radically misunderstood by his followers...
...They have not been answered...
...But Catholic conservatives have yet to deal well with the question at the center of many of their quarrels with Catholics they regard as unorthodox...
...But it becomes a bit Stalinist when it is used to plaster over inconvenient hunks of history...
...So far the problem is more one of intellectual difficulty than morality, but it has a moral dimension as well...
...and there was a whitewashing of the historical bases on which the arguments for infallibility were erected...
...We may be called on to trust God in the dark, and do without the feeling of sure footing...
...Catholics who believe that the issue is closed would do well to read the Orthodox objections, framed temperately and firmly in the work of John Meyendorff...
...What should be of special interest to twentieth century Christians inclined to take the papal authority on its own recognizance is that it also insisted on a special clothing for Jews, and this costume often took the form of a yellow patch...
...It forbade Jews from holding public office, and in an appendix said that Jews must take no interest on debts owed by people who had converted to Christianity...
...These same documents were appealed to by the earliest defenders of papal infallibility...
...and where history is ignored, or abused, in the name of Christian truth, the problem is serious...
...The christological teaching of Pope Honorius was later judged to be heretical...
...Papal primacy is to some extent an idea which caused the separation of the Eastern and Western churches, and, during the debates which surrounded the rights of Rome, defenders of the papacy made use of documents which we now know were forged...
...our safest guide in an uncertain world, even where it does not claim infallibility...
...The papacy began to represent not only continuity with the apostolic age and an alternative to nationalistic forms of Christianity...
...The need for safety and certainty is not necessarily an edifying thing...
...in the age of instant news and five-minute solutions we hear a wheel-spinning which began more than a century ago with the first Vatican Council...
...Orthodoxy at its best allows for argument...
...To protest that this is a violation of human rights is a confusion of categories, in this view...
...Error may have some rights (a notion new to conservative Catholics with Vatican II), but if it is in fact error, the business of the hierarchy is to point it out...
...Following the separation of the Eastern and Western churches the defenders of an absolutely unchallengeable papacy were balanced by bishops who insisted upon the rights of national churches...
...Bad ideas have happened in Christianity...
...The situation was not a simple one...
...Among other things, the Council declared that Jews must not appear in public on Easter, or on days devoted to Christian lamentation...
...if he was a deluded human being who was exalted by deluded followers...
...The answer to the historical problems raised by the declaration of infallibility is not to assert that they are beside the point, now that Vatican I has spoken, nor can we wave vaguely in the direction of the idea of doctrinal evolution, ignoring outright contradictions and the personal limitations of men who became pope...
...It can be argued that ideas which aren't designed for hard times aren't worth having...
...This was enforced by Pope Alexander IV...
...Athanasius, in fighting Arianism, was also forced to go against the will of a pope and most bishops...
...The historical circumstances which allowed the definition of infallibility have passed but the questions raised by the definition remain...
...It is about something which mattered to the death, more than once...
...This has been pointed out quite frequently, but it has never been satisfactorily answered...
...It is valuable, for instance, in tracing the developing articulation of Christological thought...
...While the idea of the evolution of doctrine is certainly a fruitful and important one, it has its limits...
...The Eastern churches evolved a theology which placed the episcopacy at the center of the church...
...In the long tradition of Catholic infighting it is out of synch with the rest of history...
...and definitions accepted by ecumenical councils and ratified by popes with all of the solemnity required to make them in29 August 1980: 455 fallible, by Vatican I definition, have been contradicted...
...The objection of conservative Catholics to the liberal defense of theologians who have dissented from papal pronouncements is that dissent, under these circumstances, has nothing to do with human rights...
...Abraham did, on Mount Moriah, and Jesus did, atGethsemane...
...Pope Innocent III convened the Fourth Lateran Council...
...Frank O'Connor translates an Irish poem which dates from the 7th to the 12th century: To go to Rome Is little profit, endless pain, The Master that you seek in Rome, You find at home, or seek in vain...
...In fact the long haul is our only final guide to orthodoxy, given the contradictions and occasional outright evil of popes and councils...
...now it was God's own Good Housekeeping seal of approval...
...Excommunication was also used against those who felt, after the council, that they could not in conscience accept the definition of infallibility...
...and the alternatives to orthodoxy as a living language are fanaticism, or fundamentalism, or the preferred shallowness of the secular western world—the belief that none of these things matters much, as long as we agree that we will be nice: a luxurious idea which won't help anyone in hard times...
...Orthodoxy is essential to catholic Christianity...
...It is not as if he were the only person raising them, or the only person who is affected by the answers Rome gives, or refuses to give, to them...
...Bishops are usually boring, but the best argument for them is Jim Jones and Jonestown...
...It is because the differences between ideas matter that orthodoxy is important...
...It should distress us more than it does that in our current church climate Athanasius would be considered simply a dissident, because he was not willing to acquiesce as early as theologians are expected to...
...One cannot ignore the circumstances in which infallibility was proclaimed, or the character of the pope who wanted it proclaimed, or the methods he used to assure that it would be proclaimed...
...The point here is not that popes and councils are in and of themselves unworthy guides...
...Acton was not answered, nor was Dollinger (who was a better historian than Pius IX), nor were the Old Catholics, nor are the best Orthodox critics...
...At the very least orthodoxy is a consensus that some ideas are fruitless, and maybe in some extensions murderous...
Vol. 107 • August 1980 • No. 15
