Light On Dark Water

No, this is the best comment on the Mandatum issue

Contrary to what I said a few days ago, although it's not fair to compare a blog comment to an essay–but Jeffery Mirus really covers it very fairly and thoroughly:

Critical responses have ranged from a mild concern about the larger impact on rubrical observance of the Pope’s decision to outright condemnation of the Pope, as if he has somehow revealed “his true colors”. The former reaction is reasonable; the latter is not. There are simply too many aspects of this issue to consider for anyone to be jumping to conclusions.

Read the whole  (somewhat long) thing.

Maclin Horton
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15 responses to “No, this is the best comment on the Mandatum issue”

  1. Janet

    Yes, this really is excellent and the best thing I’ve read, although I’ve been trying not to read much of that stuff. Thank you for posting it.
    AMDG

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  2. Grumpy

    Thank you for that, Maclin. I put it on my facebook. It makes a good point, at somewhat excessive length. I don’t think anyone had hitherto pointed out that the pope cannot be treated as an example to be followed, because he is simply above the law.

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  3. Janet

    I also meant to mention that Grumpy linked to this interesting blog post by Stratford Caldecott on her Facebook page yesterday. The most important part being that in Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week:
    Benedict makes it clear that the foot-washing represents the “descent”, the humility, of Christ – his service to all mankind – and not the institution of the priesthood (although on another level the gesture also looks forward to the sacrament of confession that priests will one day offer to the baptized).The priesthood begins not with this act but with the words of institution and the birth of the Church and the Eucharist, when the bread and wine are offered.
    Oh how I hope I haven’t messed up the italics.
    AMDG

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  4. Grumpy

    I think yours is better, Janet. But this is an interesting point. I tried to think of a way of formulating this idea, simply by saying ‘we must trust the pope’. I don’t think we should stand in judgement on the pope. But I could think of all kinds of counter examples – eg, JPII getting it wrong about Maciel, the disaster of Ost-Politic, etc. So I didn’t get into the debate.

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  5. Janet

    Must have cross-posted, Grumpy. Yes, that is a good point. I had been planning to write something about that and now I don’t have to, which is nice.
    AMDG

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  6. Janet

    Yes, I see what you mean about former popes making mistakes, but I still don’t think that invalidates the statement that we have to trust the pope in the sense that we are really trusting God, Who is protecting the Church from gates of Hell. All popes will make mistakes, but they are the Lord’s anointed. They are the visible head of the Church on earth, and if they mess up, they are answerable to God, not to us.
    This isn’t to say that we might not suffer because of the things that we do, there’s certainly been plenty example of that, but even that suffering can be redeemed if we let use it. I mean, we are suffering from 10,000 ills everyday, and all of that suffering if valuable and redemptive if we choose to let it be.
    Well, I see I might have to write something anyway. 😉
    AMDG

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  7. Mac

    Interesting. I will have to wait till later, like tomorrow, to comment more fully, but I’ll just say that truly bad popes make my view of this more…well, I’m not sure more what, but somewhat different.
    You’re welcome.

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  8. Mac

    I mean, the fact that there have been truly bad popes, popes who were truly bad men. Not that I think we are likely to have another anytime soon, but I have to take the possibility into account.

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  9. janet

    I’m not saying that we have to follow him in anything sinful, btw.
    AMDG

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  10. Janet

    Also, in an almost impossible effort to keep this conversation straight, I had not seen Grumpy’s 6:21 when I posted my 6:24, nor had I seen her 6:25 when I posted my 6:28. Presumably, she hadn’t seen at least one of mine when she posted the comment that showed up after it. The whole order of the discussion is messed up. 😉
    AMDG

    Reply
  11. Grumpy

    I wanted to say, we cannot set our rationality above the pope. But then I thought, not only of bad popes, but of bad curial and papal policies. But… I still don’t think we can set our rationality above the pope, and this is what I think the liturgical conservatives are doing. And I have great, enormous sympathy with them for doing so. But I don’t agree with them.

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  12. Janet

    That’s probably a better way to put it.
    AMDG

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  13. Grumpy

    I thought I was the first poster. there was nothing there when I posted, or so it seemed to me

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  14. Janet

    We were writing at the same time, so it kept coming up in the wrong order.
    AMDG

    Reply
  15. Mac

    Well, I don’t feel up to trying to articulate a complete exposition of exactly what level of obedience and deference I think we do or don’t owe the pope. But I think mine would be narrower than y’all’s. Maybe if we limit the context to the modern papacy, my view is closer. Still, I don’t see anything wrong with, for instance, questioning a pope’s judgment in a particular matter, like the Maciel case (I hadn’t thought of that–certainly a good example). Obviously we shouldn’t do it lightly, much less adopt a continual stance of fault-finding and resentment. But I suspect that I fundamentally view the popes as being on a much looser leash as regards the will of God than you do.
    Janet, your point about trusting the pope as we trust God strikes me as having a fairly limited scope. Within that scope, I would agree. I do absolutely trust God to preserve the Church and to prevent the popes from teaching fundamental error. And in the event that we had a pope with really atrociously bad judgment, or even one who acted (as opposed to teaching) against God’s will in some important way, I would accept that as God’s will. But it would be in the sense of accepting any misfortune in that spirit. What’s the term?–God’s permissive will as opposed to his positive will?
    Just for the record, I’ve had the impression, Janet, that you had the impression that I was a lot more negative about Francis than I am in this controversy, and maybe in general. Mirus’s description of “a mild concern about the larger impact” is all I’ve ever had. Maybe the fact that I haven’t written much else about him is part of the reason for that. But what I post here is at best a very very rough indication of what I’m thinking about, because posting is mostly a haphazard affair. I frequently want to post about this or that but for various reasons don’t get it done–e.g. last week I was going to post a quote from one of Francis’s homilies, but didn’t have time, and now I don’t remember specifically what it was or where I read it.

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