I was listening to a Larry Chapp discussion on YouTube about pope Francis, Fiducia Supplicans and other related issues. I went on to glance at the comment section and saw a post that struck me as a profound statement on a major issue within the Catholic Church. This is what they posted:
That was the idea at least, until Vatican II broke it all.
With the conclusion of Vatican II, much of what defined Catholic practice (and by extension belief) was overturned overnight. With a stroke of a pope's pen [Paul VI] the liturgy which had defined worship in the Roman Rite for centuries was suddenly gone. Latin? Gone... Meatless Fridays? Gone... And while I agree that the implementation of Vatican II was hijacked to go much further than what council fathers themselves had envisioned, they and the pope [Paul VI] nonetheless did little to nothing to correct any of it. That they took it upon themselves to rewrite the religious practice of tens, if not hundreds of millions of people speaks to the arrogance of that era. And anyone who objected was told to shut up and obey.
For most of the Church's history, the only means of long-distance communication was a man on a horse or a ship. The input the pope would have had on a typical Catholic's practice (even for the clergy) would have been near non-existant. The limits of communication meant that reforms were not only rare but took centuries to implement. In practice the pope has never wielded more actionable authority than he does now. Which given the modern Church's more pastoral, less monarchal tone is quite ironic.
Instant mass communication is causing the whole system to crack under its own weight. When one pope [Benedict XVI] liberalizes the use of Tridentine Mass teaching that the old liturgy is a sacred treasure never to be abrogated, only for the next pope [Francis] to limit that same Mass as a dangerous threat to the Church's unity you have a serious problem. When a pope [Francis] can turn around and claim that relationships the Church has always condemned as sinful can now be blessed you have a problem. The problem is that the Church's own authority structure is reducing practice and even orthodoxy to the will of a single man. The deposit of faith becomes a legal fiction.
To demand unquestioning obedience to a teaching authority that has become increasingly brazen in granting itself the right to redefine a faith's practice and even moral doctrine according to the whims of whoever happens to be the pope is spiritual totalitarianism. It reduces Catholicism to a personality cult.
The current model of the magisterium is why I left the Church. The "shut up and obey even the non-definitive teachings" model may have worked when a pope maybe wrote an encyclical every century, and even then we're talking like maybe 9 bullet points per encyclical. Now the popes are cranking out novellas with +40 bullet points on topics ranging from economics, immigration, weapons manufacturers, Dante, environmentalism, social media, and on and on. Turns out "faith and morals" are a whole lot more elastic than the brochure states. Very quickly, anyone with any sense realizes that to give obsequium religiosum to all of this is not only an impossible task, but an extremely dehumanizing task as well. Welcome to the Catholic Church, please turn your brain off at the door as it won't be necessary, just read this latest screed from the pope.
The Catholic Church demands that its members give deference and religious assent to its teaching office. Which makes sense: the Catholic Church is a hieratical church after all. But this authority to teach and bind is not a positivistic one. The teaching authority (the Magisterium) is bound to divine revelation and sacred tradition. A pope cannot teach whatever the heck he wants; he can only teach what has been passed down to him.
That was the idea at least, until Vatican II broke it all.
With the conclusion of Vatican II, much of what defined Catholic practice (and by extension belief) was overturned overnight. With a stroke of a pope's pen [Paul VI] the liturgy which had defined worship in the Roman Rite for centuries was suddenly gone. Latin? Gone... Meatless Fridays? Gone... And while I agree that the implementation of Vatican II was hijacked to go much further than what council fathers themselves had envisioned, they and the pope [Paul VI] nonetheless did little to nothing to correct any of it. That they took it upon themselves to rewrite the religious practice of tens, if not hundreds of millions of people speaks to the arrogance of that era. And anyone who objected was told to shut up and obey.
For most of the Church's history, the only means of long-distance communication was a man on a horse or a ship. The input the pope would have had on a typical Catholic's practice (even for the clergy) would have been near non-existant. The limits of communication meant that reforms were not only rare but took centuries to implement. In practice the pope has never wielded more actionable authority than he does now. Which given the modern Church's more pastoral, less monarchal tone is quite ironic.
Instant mass communication is causing the whole system to crack under its own weight. When one pope [Benedict XVI] liberalizes the use of Tridentine Mass teaching that the old liturgy is a sacred treasure never to be abrogated, only for the next pope [Francis] to limit that same Mass as a dangerous threat to the Church's unity you have a serious problem. When a pope [Francis] can turn around and claim that relationships the Church has always condemned as sinful can now be blessed you have a problem. The problem is that the Church's own authority structure is reducing practice and even orthodoxy to the will of a single man. The deposit of faith becomes a legal fiction.
To demand unquestioning obedience to a teaching authority that has become increasingly brazen in granting itself the right to redefine a faith's practice and even moral doctrine according to the whims of whoever happens to be the pope is spiritual totalitarianism. It reduces Catholicism to a personality cult.
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