Wednesday, March 26, 2014

The Last Acceptable Error?


Ultramontanism just will not go away. I have found that since I stopped paying attention to Roman politics several years ago my temper is more even, my prayers are clearer, and my spirit calmer. Of course I am not perfect and not a saint, but for me Papal politics are an occasion for frustration. Since the elevation of Francis many "liberals" and "traditionalist" commentators have gone catatonic over whatever the Roman ordinary did or did not say. Personally I could care less if not for the cottage industry of defending every word of the Pope's, a very fecund and lucrative business run by scores of persons with "neo-conservative" politics who are dedicated to squaring every word and action of the Pope with his predecessors.

Why this bothers me—and many others, "rad trad" or otherwise—is because one cannot escape the banter of these Ultramontanists. In the above video Mr. Voris, VP of Ultramontanism in the McChurch, rightfully bifurcates the papacy with the person who sits on the Petrine chair at any given moment in time. Then he continues to condemn as either modernistic or outside "full communion" (still awaiting a definition on that one) those who dislike either the person or the official actions of the Pope. 

Ultramontanism. The last acceptable error, and by far the most profitable. One wonders how the above would react to St. Peter Damian's description of Benedict IX as "feasting on immorality" or Patriarch Gregory II's emendations to the Vatican I document Pastor Aeternus on papal jurisdiction or even Adrian Fortescue calling Pius X an "Italian lunatic." Ultramontanists are driven by a semi-neurotic compulsion to have everything perfect in the Church at every moment in time, an impulse that history shows to be misguided and wateful. The best of Popes lived in the most turbulent of times (Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, Gregory VII, Pius V) and rarely improved the condition of the Church immediately. Many good popes are forgotten because they do not rock the proverbial boat (Benedict XIV and Leo XIII come to mind). By magnifying the person of the Pope the Ultramontanists put the present and future of the Church at the whim of a papal sneeze. Move a pontifical whisker and expect the loyalist police to come with a warrant!

I say none of this out of disloyalty, but rather out of perspective. Many of the popes in history have been mediocre pastors and despicable men. Just as many have been saints. And the rest, like Benedict XIV, fall somewhere in the middle. The same men who voted on Papal Infallability at Vatican I knew this quite well and a minority party, including Newman, questioned not the veracity of the doctrine, but its wisdom. Would connecting the papacy with inerrancy lead to abuse? Surely it did. And let none say that adumbrating this abuse makes the Rad Trad a disloyal Catholic. The decrees and Creed of the first councils of Nicaea and Constantinople which emphasized the Divinity of Christ led in some circles to linguistic and theological abuse which undermined the humanity of Christ and birthed the monophysite heresy. And unlike with the decrees of Nicaea and Constantinople, which came at a time when the Divinity of Christ was in doubt, the "spirit of Vatican I" was driven by political support for the declining temporal authority of the papacy and not initially out of religious motives. Luther was not a heretic because he complained about the immorality and greed of the Renaissance popes. He was a heretic because he denied transubstantiation, changed the Scriptures, concocted new doctrines about the Scriptures, pushed a new view of sin and justification at odds with the Church's historical understanding, and because in principle he rejected the powers above him—all factors that differentiated him from St. Peter Damian, St. Catherine of Sienna, Dr. Fortescue, and Patriarch Gregory II.

The Church is a series of churches. Each diocese is in fact a church, church deriving from a Semitic word meaning "assembly," which pre-supposes some sort of leadership. A revival of Catholicism in the West will have to come from the ground level: devout and prayerful laity working with bishops who care deeply about the welfare and salvation of the flock. One day a Pope will wake up to find himself pastor of the Church and not its CEO, President, Chairman of the Board, and majority shareholder. Then Ultramontane middle management will have to start sending out résumés.

16 comments:

  1. Thank you for putting this down so succinctly!

    David

    ReplyDelete
  2. What were Gregory II's emendations?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was also going to ask about more information on that. I think he said after Vatican I that he subscribed to it with the caveat of the formula from the Council of Florence, "except the rights of the Eastern patriarchs". Is that right?

      Delete
    2. That is exactly right. He objected to the idea that the pope had immediate episcopal jurisdiction everywhere in the Church. The change sent Pius IX into a violent hissy fit, but he eventually conceded to Gregory.

      Delete
  3. What a very sensible and cogent post. Ultramontanism does seem to be inspired by a dreadful fearfulness about the future - like Belloc's: "Always keep a hold of nurse / For fear of finding something worse."

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you so much for writing this. I am so sick of hearing "authority" this and "obedience" that when it comes to everything that the pope says and does. Protestantism (as you eluded) all of a sudden becomes defined as disobedience to authority rather than a set of heretical teachings; hence the SSPX are branded Protestants. Such fallacy. Such ignorance of history and correct terminology. People go through great lengths to explain away everything J23-F1 have said/done, and the minute one tries to argue (even dispassionately) the truth about liturgy, doctrine, etc., one is castigated as "more Catholic than the Pope". Perhaps, the Pope needs to be more Catholic himself?

    It's true that the less one follows and fears Vatican politics, the more at peace he is, but only truly at peace when he is well informed of the objective errors and inanities coming out of said Vatican not because he chooses to plug up his ears in some kind of blissful ignorance. The neo-cons are notorious for doing the latter while remaining largely ignorant of the issues, yet they feel the need to rip apart those who use their God-given intelligence to learn the truth because one can never, ever, question anything a pope says or does. Is this the logical outcome of a misdirected post-Tridentine spirituality which moves the virtue of obedience as an object of justice into an object of the virtue of Faith?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ugh... This Ultramontanist mentality is by far the worst in the FSSP and "respectable" traddy groups. At least the SSPX realize that the almighty "Magisterium" can err in their judgement.

    Honestly, this mentality is the fault of the counter reformation:
    “If ever a pope, as a private person, should fall into heresy, he would at once fall from the pontificate.” - Alphonsus Ligouri

    “A pope who is a manifest heretic automatically (per se) ceases to be pope and head, just as he ceases automatically to be a Christian and a member of the Church. Wherefore, he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the teaching of all the ancient Fathers who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction.” - Robert Bellarmine

    It doesn't take much to realize the roots of sedevecantism when these two quotes are looked at.

    God grant us the day when the Latin church and its faithful end this idiotic "Cult of the Pope"!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I concur with the "Rad Trad" that ultramontanism is horrendous and deeply annoying.
    It is a profound blessing within the Eastern Catholic Churches, and the SSPX chapels and even the "schismatic" Orthodox Church, that their is a much healthier perspective on the Pope. The local church and the local community matters most. This is healthy, this is an enviroment you can raise your children in.

    UItramontanism is an unhealthy obsessive compulsive semi-paranoid politically manipulative waste of time.

    I otherwise like Michael Voris and applaud the positive work he has done in defense of the faith, but to the extent that he obsesses over Francis and refuses to criticism him, he reverts back to the neo-con doofus stereotype. Like all of us, he is imperfect.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Frankly, the local bishops and the entire structure of the Roman Catholic Church encourages ultra montanism. To speak out against it and remain orthodox, in the USA is not very respected, but it should be.

      Delete
  7. If the church had more decentralization and local bishops were not always appointed by the Pope ultramontanism would dissappear. Call me naive or crazy but I feel that Roman Catholic Church should model itself on the Orthodox Church ecclesiologically. Whatever problems the Orthodox have, ultramontanism is not one of them. The history of the latin church shows that decentralization did once exist back in the middle ages, and the faith survived.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am not so sure modeling after the Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology, in so far as it differs from pre-Trent Catholic ecclesiology, is wise, but your point is taken. I think the middle ages were an excellent model for the Church. The pope had a say in the selection of a major archbishops and primates, but otherwise elections were handled by the local laity, clergy, canons, and monks. Bishops were often monks and subject to higher archbishops whom they knew and met regularly. This meant a balance in the hierarchy, but also a means of appeal to the larger Church. Decentralization is essential to the Church in the long run, however I am not sure I want the clergy of America or Germany selecting their own bishops (although I guess they could not do a worse job than Rome is now).

      Delete
  8. Perhaps some clarification is in order. Ultramontanism is actually Catholic dogma. However some nuances therein should be distinguished. The belief that every single word the Pope says is neogospel, that he can never teach error even while not invoking the Chair of Peter, that he needs no consultation from other bishops, that he is in sorts a "Universal Bishop" with total authority over all dioceses: we may call that hyper-ultramonantism; and while it is believed by many neoconservatives, it's actually not what was taught by Vatican I and Lumen Gentium. Rather we may call the actual Petrine dogma of the Church to be "moderate-ultramontanism", which grants the Bishop of Rome more authority than the Eastern Orthodox believes he has (i.e. that he is only "first in honor of the Patriarchs"), but nevertheless requires that he act in consultation with other Bishops.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Ultramontanism is actually Catholic dogma". Excuse me, but what a gross abuse of language and misrepresentation of reality.

      Delete
  9. The SSPX Schism is far more rigorous in punishing their malefactors than is The Holy See.

    Fellay filleted the infamous nine and they had not even consecrated any Bishops.

    That aside, Rad Trad, this is up to your usual great standards.

    As to the the, Recognise the Pope but Resist the Pope, those men are merely following their own will in that if the Pope takes a disciplinary action they approve of they will follow it but if the Pope takes a decision they don't like they won't follow it.

    By their actions they confess they have usurped authority.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Full and Partial Communion

    http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a9p3.htm

    I think everyone recognises there is one Faith, one Baptism but one Baptised by, say, a Methodist Minister is in partial communion, not in Full Communion, with the Catholic Church because he does not participate in the Unity of our Worship, Doctrine, and Authority

    ReplyDelete