Is a Catholic Church without a pope possible?
01/03/2013
- Opinión
The announcement of the resignation of Benedict XVI surprised me, as it did many others. I am impressed with the simplicity with which he exposed his sentiments, and I think that this manner of speaking could "unblock" the static vision that we have of the papacy, and open a space for debates with respect to the government of the Catholic Church. This is what I propose in this text: does the Catholic Church really need a pope? There are several elements here.
1. The Papacy
The papacy is not tied to the origins of Christianity. The term "papa" never appears in the Second Testament. The verses in the Gospel according to Matthew ("you are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church": 16, 18) have been cited in support of the papacy, but we should recall that contemporary exegesis is clear in affirming that one cannot isolate a text from its literary context, as if it were an oracle. In fact these verses of Matthew are employed, at least in the Catholic tradition, as an oracle. For anyone who reads the Gospels in their context it is clear that one cannot imagine that Jesus had planned an apostolic dynasty on a corporate model, based on a succession of powers. The words "you are Peter" do not support the institution of the papacy. It was the bishop Esusebio of Cesarea, a technocrat of the universalist policy of the Emperor Constantine, who in the fourth century began to write lists of successive bishops for the principal cities of the Roman Empire – in many cases without verifying the names involved – with the intention of adapting the Christian system to the Roman model of a succession of power. This bishop-historian is the creator of the image of Peter as pope.
Historical investigation shows another horizon and demonstrates that the word 'papa' (pope), from popular third-century Greek, is a term derived from the Greek 'pater' (father) that expresses the affection that Christians had for certain bishops or priests. The term was adopted in the Christian vocabulary, in both the orthodox eastern church and the western church. In Russia today, the pastor of a community is called "pope". History notes that the first bishop to be called 'papa' was Cyprian, bishop of Carthage from 248-258, and that the term 'papa' only appeared later in Rome: the first bishop of this city to be officially so styled (according to available documentation) was John I, in the sixth century.
2. The episcopate
In contrast with the papacy, the episcopal institution has solid roots in early Christianity, since it refers to a function already established in the Jewish Synagogue. The word 'bishop' ('epi-scopo' that signifies a 'super-visor') appears several times in the texts of the Second Testament (1 Tm 3,2; Titus 1,7; I Peter 2,25 and Acts 20,29) as well as the substantive 'episcopate' (1 Tm 3,1). In the Jewish Synagogues, the 'episcopos' was responsible for good order in meetings, and the first Christian communities simply adopted the name and the function.
3. The struggle for power
From the third century an intense power struggle was unleashed between the three principal metropolitan centres of the Roman Empire (Alexandria, Antioch and Rome), to which Constantinople was added after its founding by Constantine. This was particularly dramatic in the eastern part of the empire, where Greek was the common language. The bishops here were called 'patriarchs', a term that joins the Greek 'pater' with political power ('archè,' in Greek, means 'power'). The 'patriarch' is both 'father' and 'political leader'. In the beginning Rome took little part in this dispute, being distanced from the great power centres of the period, and because [by this time] Rome used a less universal language, Latin (which was only employed in the administration and in the army of the Roman imperial system). Jerusalem, the city at the origins of the Christian movement, was outside of this struggle, since it was a city with little political importance.
Even so, Rome pulled its weight in the western part of the Empire. The aforenamed bishop Cyprian of Carthage reacted energetically against the hegemonic pretentions of Rome and insisted that among bishops there should be a 'complete equality of function and power'. But the course of history was implacable. The successive patriarchs of Rome managed to amplify their authority and imposed their voice, principally after their successful alliance with the emerging Germanic power n the west (Charlemagne, in the year 800). The relations with the oriental patriarchs (principally with that of Constantinople) became more and more tense, until the definitive rupture of 1052. With this commences the history of the Catholic Apostolic Roman Church properly so-called.
4. The pope lines up with the powerful
Once having achieved a predominant power, Rome elaborated a sophisticated 'art of the court' that it had learned from Constantinople. Through the centuries, practically all western European governments learned from Rome the diplomatic arts. These arts were seldom edifying, including hypocrisy, appearance, control over people, impunity, stealth, a codified language (inaccessible to the faithful), pious words (often deceptive), cruelty masked by works of charity, financial accumulation (indulgences, threats of hell, a pastoral of fear, etc.). The imposing 'Criminal history of Christianity' in ten volumes, that the historian K. Deschner has just finished, describes this eminently papal art in great detail.
It was mainly through the art of diplomacy that the papacy, throughout the Middle Ages, had phenomenal success. Without arms, Rome faced the great powers of the west and emerged victoriously (as at Canossa in 1077). As a result, the Church was affected, in the words of the historian Toynbee, with the 'drunkenness of victory'. The papacy lost contact with the reality of the world and lived in an unreal universe, replete with supernatural words (understood by no one). As Ivone Gebara notes, some of these words are still in vogue, as for example when it is said that the Holy Spirit will elect the next pope.
With the advent of modernity, the papacy slowly lost its public space. In the nineteenth century, principally during the long pontificate of Pius IX, the old strategy of opposition to the 'powers of this world' ceased to function. It brought no victories, only defeats. It was then that Pope Leo XIII resolved to change the strategy and began a policy of support for the strong, a strategy that worked throughout the twentieth century. Benedict XV emerged from the first world war on the side of the victorious; Pius XI supported Mussolini, Hitler and Franco, while Pius XII practiced a policy of silence in the fact of the crimes against humanity perpetrated during the second world war, at the cost of an immense number of human lives. After a brief interruption with John XXIII, the policy of silent support of the strong (and generic words of consolation for the losers) continues in our own time.
5. Today, the papacy is a problem
Because of all this, one can say today that the papacy is not a solution, it is a problem. One cannot say the same of the episcopate, since this has demonstrated luminous pages in recent times. In addition to martyred bishops (such as Romero and Angelelli) we have seen in Latin America a generation of exceptional bishops, from the 1960s until the 1990s. In addition, the Second Vatican Council emphasized the notion of episcopal collegiality, with the objective of strengthening the power of bishops and limiting that of the pope. But all of this crashed into an impassable wall formed by a mixture of mental laziness (the law of the least effort), fascination with power (Walter Benjamin), the plight of the weak over against the powerful (Machiavelli) and the courtesan arts (Norbert Elias). Even so, it is worth recalling that Catholicism is bigger that the pope and that the importance of values emphasized by Catholicism is greater than the present system of governance.
6. Could the Catholic Church not have a pope?
Could France continue to exist without a King, England without a Queen, Russia without a Tzar, Iran without an Ayatollah? History itself provides a response. France did not end with the overthrow of King Louis XVI, and Iran would hardly end with the end of the reign of the Ayatollahs. This can be applied to Christianity, as is shown by the rise of Protestantism in the sixteenth century. There would be certain resistances and nostalgia, attempts to resurrect the past, but institutions do not tend to disappear with changes in governance. In general, the movement of history in the direction of greater democracy and popular participation is irreversible. Sooner or later, the Catholic Church will have to face the question of the surmounting of the papacy by a system of central government more in accord with the times we live in.
Within this logic one could say that the present preoccupation concerning a future pope could divert our attention from the really important questions. It is not a question of the pope, but of the papacy as a form of government. One understands that the media, in these days, concentrates on the figure of the pope. For them, the pope is business. The success of the funeral of John Paul II, a few years ago, demonstrated to those in charge of the media the financial possibilities of large papal events. With great gusto, the media today assume for themselves the divulging of the basic points of the papal catechism: the pope is the successor of Peter, the first pope; the election of a pope, in the ultimate instance, is the work of the Holy Spirit; let no one lose the plenary indulgence granted exceptionally by God on the occasion of the first blessing of the new pope. This we shall see in coming weeks. Perhaps it would be better not to speak of the election of a future pope in these days, but to work on themes that prepare the Church of the future.
I shall end with two recent examples with respect to all this. Few are aware that in 1980, Cardinal Aloysius Lorcheider discussed with Pope John Paul II the question of the decentralization of power in the Church. There is no written record, nor a photographic record of this discussion, but it appears that the pope was open to the suggestions of the Brazilian Cardinal, as is seen in the encyclical 'Ut unum sint'. This point was a subject of comment by Joseph Comblin in one of his last works: "Problems of Church governance' (see Internet). I think that the pope did not go further because he did not see a real political will in the Church to move in the direction of a decentralization of governance. In this case, it is clear that the problem is not the pope, but the papacy.
A different example, but one that moves in the same direction, is that of the Brazilian bishop, Helder Câmara. Coming to Rome to take part in the second Vatican Council (he had not been to Europe before this) the Brazilian bishop was impressed with the behaviour of the Roman Curia, to the point of hallucination, as he notes in his circular letters. On one occasion, in a session in the basilica of Saint Peter, he had the impression of seeing the Emperor Constantine invade the church, galloping on a graceful horse. Another time, he dreamed that the pope had gone crazy, thrown his tiara into the Tiber and set fire to the Vatican. In informal conversations, the pope would do well to sell the Vatican to Unesco and rent an apartment in the centre of Rome. I was able to verify personally, on a number of occasions, that Dom Helder detested the 'papal seal" (one of the instruments of the power of Rome). And at the same time, the Brazilian bishop maintained a friendship with Pope Paul VI, which demonstrates again that the problem is not the pope, but the papacy as an institution.
(Translation: Jordan Bishop)
https://www.alainet.org/fr/node/74126?language=es
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