The first of a five-part series reflects on the future of the Catholic Church in Ireland...THE FUTURE of the Catholic Church in Ireland will depend entirely on the breadth and depth of the reforms that can now be envisioned and introduced.
So, in this and a further four columns, five features of church life and teaching that most loudly cry out for reform will be analysed.
The first is papal hierarchy.
Papacy is chosen first, not because it is the most important feature of the church, but rather because it is the worst feature of the church – in that it is most likely to continue to undermine or veto necessary reforms, particularly its own reform.
In the gospel scene in which the prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, is thought to have instituted papacy, Jesus is pictured choosing a leader for his group of close companions in mission. He wants to make sure the leader will know who Jesus is and what he is about.
Cephas steps forward and confesses that Jesus is the Christ and is duly rewarded with the new name, Peter or Rock, and given the keys of the kingdom of God. But at this point promoters of a Petrine papacy seem to stop reading and fail to notice that Peter is quickly fired from the job just offered him.
When Jesus went on to say that he must go up to Jerusalem and die for his message and mission, as prophets often had to do, Peter corrected him.
Jesus suddenly realised that Peter’s idea of the Christ was modelled on King David, the paradigmatic Christ in Israel’s history, who would reign over the same kingdom, now won back from the Romans, and reign as absolute monarchs are wont to reign, by threat of force both armed and punitive.
This view of the Christ, the New Testament amply illustrates, was shared among all the followers of Jesus both during the mission and after his death; for all that Jesus could say or do (in Eucharist mainly) to persuade them that the true reign of God, as exercised by Jesus himself, and by any who would lead his community after him, had to be one of service (slavery even), in which one would die for others rather than kill; the polar opposite of the reign of the absolute monarchs of this world.
There is no scene in the New Testament that describes Jesus reinstating Peter as pope before he died; indeed in one scene of the arrest of Jesus, Peter draws the sword to bring on the insurrection.
Peter is seen in a strong leadership role in the little community that survived; but in nothing like the model of absolute monarchy. Paul, for instance, is particularly anxious to insist that his call and mission as an apostle owes nothing to Peter.
The model of absolute monarchy for papacy developed over some three centuries.
It is due mainly, after the ambitions for power of subsequent bishops of Rome, to the Christian leadership’s assimilation to the structures and ethos of the mighty Roman empire, with the principal seat of its power in Rome.
This gradual assimilation could be seen to constitute the price paid for the hugely successful effort to convert the whole of the Roman empire to Christianity. Nevertheless, it represents the most complete form of secularisation in any part or office of the church.
The assimilation was consummated under Constantine, who himself as Pontifex Maximus was head of religion as well as state; just as Pope Benedict is absolute monarch of his Vatican statelet and simultaneously of the worldwide Catholic Church – and pretender to absolute rule over all other Christian churches.
The matter of papal infallibility is also relevant to the historical papal hunger for absolute power; as the promoters of that cause before Vatican II amply illustrate.
For even if an absolute monarch dictates to you, without need for your agreement, some harsh rule on what to believe, how to worship, how to live, you might still retain some slight hope that you could persuade him that this was a mistaken or at least a counter- productive move. If though he has decreed himself infallible, you are utterly helpless.
Next week: EucharistSIC: IT