Preview: "Catholics are . . . not papists but Christians" (Cardinal Müller)

On the Crisis Magazine website, I had to stop and read an opinion piece with the word "Papist" in the title. Since the word "Papist" rang my English Reformation bells, I asked Anna Mitchell on the Son Rise Morning Show if she'd like to use our Monday morning segment on January 29 to discuss the Cardinal's use of that word. She said yes, so we'll do it at our usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live here or catch the podcast later.

The headline for an exclusive Q&A interview with Cardinal Gerhard Müller begins with the quotation "The Catholic Church is not the Pope’s Church and Catholics are therefore not papists but Christians" as an edited pull quote from a longer sentence in the Cardinal's response to the second question ("What has the Church traditionally taught on the limits of papal authority? ")

 . . . The approach to a Catholic ecclesiology is important. In Lumen Gentium, Vatican II did not begin with the Pope because, contrary to what traditional Protestant polemics believed, the Catholic Church is not the Pope’s Church and Catholics are therefore not papists but Christians. Christ is the head of the Church and from Him all divine grace and truth passes to the members of His body, which is the Church. This is also what Vatican II says with the highest authority in the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei verbum (Art. 10). (emphasis added0

Papist is a pejorative term for Catholics: it was commonly used through the long English Reformation and even used when Parliament began passing Acts allowing Catholics more religious freedom (cf ,The Papists Act of 1788,  18 Geo. 3. c. 60). Therefore, I found it interesting that Cardinal Müller used a term so associated in my mind at least with the English Reformation and the long-lasting fear of and prejudice against Catholics in England and her Colonies.

Cardinal Müller is denying that Catholics have ever been Papists. This pejorative term, traditionally used by Protestants against Catholics does not reflect true Catholic identity, according to his answer. We are Christians, not Papists. We should not let others define our identity, based on sixteenth century Protestant tradition handed down through the centuries.

Its first use as a noun in England occurred in 1528 (as in, "He is a Papist") according to Merriam-Webster; as an adjective in 1562 (as in, "He has Papist loyalties"). 

In 1528, William Tyndale had written and published The Obedience of the Christian Man, which advocated Caesorapapism (the monarch's control of the church in his realm) and the Divine Right of Kings. Anne Boleyn persuaded Henry VIII to read the book and he was influenced by it. In 1532, the Convocation of Bishops agreed to the Submission of the Clergy, abdicating their rights to make ecclesiastical laws to the king and Sir Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor, because he would be responsible for enforcing the laws Henry VIII made.

The opposition cited by this term by English Protestants was between the English monarch (Henry VIII, Edward VI, Elizabeth I, James I, Charles I, etc., etc.) and the pope at the time (many popes, from Clement VII, to Pope St. Pius V, to Gregory VIII, to Leo XI, to Blessed Innocent XI, etc., etc.): the issue was: what divided loyalty between secular ruler cum supreme governor of the Church of England and the Pope, the Vicar of Christ, could be allowed on either side?

When Pope St. Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I and took the further step of declaring English Catholics not bound to loyalty to their monarch (in belated support of the Northern Rebellion) in 1570 (Regnans in Excelsis), he merely intensified the conflict. His successor, Pope Gregory XIII tried to dial it back by separating loyalty and obedience to the Papacy and the Catholic Church in religious matters from loyalty to the monarch and country in civil matters. Although Queen Elizabeth stated that she wanted no window into men's souls, she still wanted their total loyalty, body and soul.

The Appellants late in Elizabeth I's reign tried to reach an agreement with the queen on the grounds of those separate loyalties, and James I also tried to craft a compromise, but the conflict of loyalties remained. An emblem of these failures would be the martyrdom of Blessed Robert Drury: he was one of the signers of the loyal address of 31 January 1603 which acknowledged the queen as lawful sovereign on earth, but maintained their loyalty in religious matters to the Pope. After the Gunpowder Plot discovery, James I required the Appellants to sign a new oath which acknowledged his authority over spiritual matters. Robert refused, and was arrested in 1606 for the crime of being a priest. He was offered his freedom if he would sign the oath; he declined. Martyred by being hanged, drawn, and quartered on 26 February 1607 at Tyburn, London England. He--and Blessed Roger Cadwallador, another former Appellant signatory, martyred on  27 August 1610--is one of the Eighty-five Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Saint Pope John Paul II in 1987.

And a survey of the many martyrs of the long English Reformation shows that it was issue of authority and loyalty between the monarch and the pope at the time that mattered, especially during the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, because of Regnans in Excelsis. Nevertheless, most of the missionary priests considered martyrs were found guilty under laws that made it illegal for them to even be present in England, and the laity considered martyrs were found guilty either of assisting the priests, attending Mass, obdurate recusancy (refusal to attend Church of England services), converting to Catholicism, etc. That's why many of the martyrs made statements on the scaffold saying they were loyal to the monarch in all civil martyrs, but followed their consciences to practice the Catholic Faith, especially by celebrating and attending Holy Mass. It is, however, also true that some of these Catholic martyrs upheld the Pope's authority to depose a monarch, although how that would be actionable in sixteenth or seventeenth century England is difficult to see.

We should also note that the Catholic Church would not and has not beatified or canonized any of those priests and laity who were involved in any plot to kidnap, depose, or assassinate a monarch--or blow up Parliament.

Skipping a few centuries, Cardinal Müller also alludes to the Kulturkampf of Chancellor Bismarck in Prussia after the First Vatican Council in 1870:

The German bishops, with the approval of Pope Pius IX, declared to the German Chancellor Bismarck, who wanted to misuse Vatican I to justify the destruction of the Catholic Church in the “Kulturkampf”: “…the infallible magisterium of the Church is bound to the content of Holy Scripture and Tradition as well as to the doctrinal decisions already given by the ecclesiastical magisterium” (Denzinger-Hünermann no. 3116).

And we know that Saint John Henry Newman responded to William E. Gladstone's over-reaction to the doctrine of Papal Infallibility in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk.
 

The term travelled across the Atlantic Ocean to the British American Colonies, of course, thus a couple of recent books including the term, Papist Patriots: The Making of American Catholic Identity by Maura Jane Farrelly and Papist Devils: Catholics in British America, 1574-1783 by Robert Emmett Curran. The fear of Papal authority influenced politics throughout the 19th century: the Know-Nothing Party, the State-by-State Constitutional Blaine Amendments, etc. 

In 1928, when Al Smith ran for President, he was called a Papist! and we know that in 1960 candidate John F. Kennedy faced, and mollified, to some extent, fears that he would obey the Pope instead of the U.S. Constitution.

It's fascinating to consider how this term "Papist" either as a noun or adjective, has a divisive tradition from the sixteen to the twentieth centuries.

All images public domain:

Top image: William Tyndale

Bottom image: An anti-Catholic cartoon shows Cardinal Francesco Satolli, who was appointed in 1893 as the first Papal Delegate to the United States, casting a shadow (looking a like Pope Leo XIII) across the country.

Pope Pius IX Elected in 1846

Giovanni Maria Cardinal Mastai Ferretti became Pope Pius IX on June 16, 1846, succeeding Pope Gregory XVI. His reign as pope would last 32 years; his rule over the Papal States 24. To say that he is a controversial pope is to make an understatement. Pope St. John Paul II beatified Pope Pius IX on September 3, 2000:

In the context of the Jubilee Year, it is with deep joy that I have declared blessed two Popes, Pius IX and John XXIII, and three other servants of the Gospel in the ministry and the consecrated life: Archbishop Tommaso Reggio of Genoa, the diocesan priest William Joseph Chaminade and the Benedictine monk Columba Marmion.

Five different personalities, each with his own features and his own mission, all linked by a longing for holiness. It is precisely their holiness that we recognize today: holiness that is a profound and transforming relationship with God, built up and lived in the daily effort to fulfil his will. Holiness lives in history and no saint has escaped the limits and conditioning which are part of our human nature. In beatifying one of her sons, the Church does not celebrate the specific historical decisions he may have made, but rather points to him as someone to be imitated and venerated because of his virtues, in praise of the divine grace which shines resplendently in him.

Of Pope Pius IX, Pope John Paul II said:

Listening to the words of the Gospel acclamation: "Lord, lead me on a straight road", our thoughts naturally turn to the human and religious life of Pope Pius IX, Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti. Amid the turbulent events of his time, he was an example of unconditional fidelity to the immutable deposit of revealed truths. Faithful to the duties of his ministry in every circumstance, he always knew how to give absolute primacy to God and to spiritual values. His lengthy pontificate was not at all easy and he had much to suffer in fulfilling his mission of service to the Gospel. He was much loved, but also hated and slandered.

However, it was precisely in these conflicts that the light of his virtues shone most brightly: these prolonged sufferings tempered his trust in divine Providence, whose sovereign lordship over human events he never doubted. This was the source of Pius IX's deep serenity, even amid the misunderstandings and attacks of so many hostile people. He liked to say to those close to him: "In human affairs we must be content to do the best we can and then abandon ourselves to Providence, which will heal our human faults and shortcomings".

Sustained by this deep conviction, he called the First Vatican Ecumenical Council, which clarified with magisterial authority certain questions disputed at the time, and confirmed the harmony of faith and reason. During his moments of trial Pius IX found support in Mary, to whom he was very devoted. In proclaiming the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, he reminded everyone that in the storms of human life the light of Christ shines brightly in the Blessed Virgin and is more powerful than sin and death.

Please note that he became pope seven months after John Henry Newman became a Catholic. After Newman studied for the Catholic priesthood and was ordained in Rome, Pope Pius IX approved his founding of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England. On August 22, 1850, Pius IX conferred an honorary doctorate degree on Newman before he became the Rector the Catholic University of Ireland, another foundation Pope Pius IX approved so Catholics in Ireland would have a college to attend.

But Newman and Pius IX also had their difficulties. There are some websites that descry the canonization of Newman (a canonization approved by the current pope) because they think Newman did not respect the authority of the pope highly enough. I'm sure you see the contradiction there.

The website organized by the Oratories in England on the occasion of Newman's canonization dedicated a page to Newman's thoughts about the papacy and papal authority:

In 1852 Newman was appointed Rector of the newly-founded Catholic University in Dublin. Pope Pius IX had forbidden Irish Catholics to attend new ‘mixed’, i.e. secular, colleges which the British government were setting up. Instead, a Catholic university should be founded. Newman knew that it would be a tough job to get the new university off the ground, as nearly half the Irish Catholic bishops didn’t support it. In public lectures he answered those who doubted its practicality by saying it would succeed because the Pope had decreed it and the papacy had a perpetual wisdom down the ages. It was a brave argument to make, but in the ensuing years, Newman came to realise that he himself actually knew more about the situation in Ireland than the Pope did. When he later published his lectures as The Idea of a University he revised the passages in which he had lauded the papacy’s perpetual wisdom.

During the 1860’s there was a growing pressure by the ‘Ultramontane’ party within the Church to have the doctrine of Papal Infallibility officially declared. Newman believed in the doctrine - he had demonstrated it in action in early church history - but it was now being pushed in an extreme form to cover everything that a pope said. A leading Ultramontane proclaimed that he wanted an infallible statement with his copy of the Times at breakfast every morning. In this atmosphere, Newman thought it would be inopportune for a definition to be made.

The Vatican Council of 1870 did define the doctrine but in very precise terms. Administrative or political decisions were not covered. Nevertheless, the Ultramontane party claimed that they were. Many ordinary Catholics were troubled . . .

Then Dr. Andrew Nash describes Newman's Letter to the Duke of Norfolk which I think I covered in this blog pretty well. Nash concludes:

Newman’s journey to a balanced understanding of papal authority remains helpful for Catholics today. His canonisation gives us a good opportunity to explain this much misunderstood doctrine to others.

Image Credit (Public Domain) Pope Pius IX in 1846

Papal Primacy in Pastor Aeternus

As today is the anniversary of the definition of the Church's teaching on Papal Primacy and Papal Infallibility at the First Vatican Council on July 18, 1870, here are some comments from Father John Trigilio  at Legatus:

Papal primacy is the concept that the bishop of Rome (the pope) is the universal pastor and supreme head of the Catholic Church. He has full, supreme, immediate, and universal jurisdictional authority to govern the Church.

This means that no bishop, synod, or council of bishops can override his authority. His teaching authority is defined in the doctrine of papal infallibility. His governing authority is contained in papal primacy.

The Eastern Orthodox Church considers the bishop of Rome to have a primacy in honor among the five patriarchs of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Rome. They do not recognize his primacy in jurisdiction, however.

Every bishop in the Catholic Church must be approved by the pope and receive a papal mandate before being ordained and consecrated to the episcopacy, and it is the pope who confers on that bishop the authority to govern the diocese to which he has been appointed.

The First Vatican Council defined papal infallibility and papal primacy. “All the faithful of Christ must believe that the Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold primacy over the whole world, and that the Pontiff of Rome himself is the successor of the blessed Peter, the chief of the apostles, and is the true Vicar of Christ and head of the whole Church and faith, and teacher of all Christians.”

The charism of infallibility is exercised only when the pope issues an ex cathedra statement on faith and morals or when he proposes a teaching united with all the bishops of the world. Unlike divine inspiration of scripture, where God directed the sacred authors to write only what he wanted them to write, infallibility means there are no moral or doctrinal errors present in the statement.

And here's a conversation on these doctrines on Thinking With the Church:

These teachings – of an Ecumenical Council – are to be held by all the faithful on pain of mortal sin: to deny them is to separate oneself from the Body of Christ.

Only, what do these teachings mean?

More importantly, what don’t they mean?

Where did they come from?

Why did the Fathers of the I Vatican Council bother with them at all, and why do we bother with them today, when the Papacy as an institution often appears rather to be an impediment to Christian unity than anything else (and don’t be upset with me – I didn’t say it, Pope St. John Paul II did in Ut unum sint, 96).

This week, we explore these questions and others with Christopher Wells, a theologian doing Doctoral work at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, who has written extensively on both subjects, especially their treatment in the thought and writings of the great 19th Century theologian and Churchman, Henry Edward Cardinal Manning.

Among other comments, Christopher Wells contrasts Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, noting that the former did not use his primacy or authority as much as he could have, while the latter uses his primacy and authority as much as he can.

I'm still reading--in between assigned reading for my summer school classes at the Spiritual Life Center's Christendom Academy--Adam DeVille's Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity.

Authority in the Church

Image Credit: Christ Pantocrator in the church of Santa Pudenziana in Rome, 

Roman mosaic, c. 410 AD

Today is the last day of the Second Annual EDI Florovsky-Newman Week, held today at St. George's Orthodox Christian Cathedral. We have been meeting since Wednesday evening on the campus of Newman University and have been discussing this theme:

The Patristic View of Authority: Bible, Pope, or Conciliarity?

Co-sponsored by Eighth Day Institute and the Gerber Institute for Catholic Studies, the Florovsky-Newman Week promotes a “return to the sources for Christian unity.” Heeding Fr. Florovsky's advice, rather than simply overlooking differences, this conference seeks to overcome the different views of church authority. And we do so by returning to the common Tradition, by learning to read the Fathers as living masters, rather than as historical documents. Our hope is for you to deepen your understanding of the authority by which the Church grounds her faith and morals, examining authority from our respective traditions as Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christians. Join us for this unique event as we dive into the Church Fathers in order to explore, challenge, and encourage one another to better love God and neighbor.

On Thursday and Friday mornings, we had academic papers on various topics about authority in East and West. I presented one on Newman and Papal Infallibility At least two students at Newman who are also in seminary training for the Catholic Diocese of Wichita gave papers, and we heard from Lutheran and Orthodox presenters--even a Mormon (the discussion of the Great Apostasy, though necessarily brief, was fascinating and disconcerting)! In the evenings, the plenary speakers, Lutheran and Catholic, presented their papers, and their counterparts responded to them--today the Orthodox speaker will make his presentation.

It has been a great short week or long weekend of presentations, conversations, lunch, fellowship and shopping at Eighth Day Books! More on this event again.

Pope Gregory XIV, RIP: A Pope and Three Saints

On October 15, 1591, Pope Gregory XIV, born Niccolò Sfondrati on February 11, 1535, died in Rome. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he was pious and ascetic before his election to the papacy:

His father Francesco, a Milanese senator, had, after the death of his wife, been created cardinal by Pope Paul III, in 1544. Niccolò studied at the Universities of perugia and Padua, was ordained priest, and then appointed Bishop of Cremona, in 1560. He participated in the sessions of the Council of Trent, 1561-1563, and was created Cardinal-Priest of Santa Cecilia by Gregory XIII on 12 December 1583. Urban VII having died on 27 September, 1590, Sfondrati was elected to succeed him on 5 December, 1590, after a protracted conclave of more than two months, and took the name of Gregory XIV. The new pope had not aspired to the tiara. Cardinal Montalto, who came to his cell to inform him that the Sacred College had agreed on his election, found him kneeling in prayer before a crucifix. When on the next day he was elected he burst into tears and said to the cardinals: "God forgive you! What have you done?" From his youth he had been a man of piety and mortification. Before entering the ecclesiastical state he was a constant companion of Charles Borromeo, and when cardinal, he was an intimate friend of Philip Neri whose holy life he strove to imitate.

Pope Gregory XIV was very actively involved in the French Wars of Religion, trying to prevent the Calvinist Henry of Navarre from succeeding the last son of Henri II and Catherine de Medici:

As soon as he became pope, he gave his energetic support to the French League, and took active measures against Henry of Navarre, whom Sixtus V, in 1585, had declared a heretic and excluded from succession to the French throne. In accordance with the Salic law, after the death of Henry III in 1589, Henry of Navarre was to succeed to the French throne, but the prevalent idea of those times was that no Protestant could become King of France, which was for the most part Catholic. The nobles, moreover, threatened to rise up against the rule of Henry of Navarre unless he promised to become a Catholic. In order to reconcile the nobility and the people to his reign, Henry declared on 4 August, 1589, that he would become a Catholic and uphold the Catholic religion in France. When Gregory XIV became pope, Henry had not yet fulfilled his promise and gave little hope of doing it in the near future. The pope, therefore, decided to assist the French League in its efforts to depose Henry by force of arms and in this he was encouraged by Philip II of Spain. In his monitorial letter to the Council of Paris, 1 March, 1591, he renewed the sentence of excommunication against Henry, and ordered the clergy, nobles, judicial functionaries, and the Third Estate of France to renounce him, under pain of severe penalties.

He only reigned ten months and ten days:

He vainly tried to induce Philip Neri to accept the purple. On 21 September, 1591, he raised to the dignity of a religious order the Congregation of the Fathers of a Good Death (Clerici regulares ministrantes infirmis) founded by St. Camillus de Lellis. In his Bull "Cogit nos", dated 21 March, 1591, he forbade under pain of excommunication all bets concerning the election of a pope, the duration of a pontificate, or the creation of new cardinals. In a decree, dated 18 April, 1591, he ordered reparation to be made to the Indians of the Philippines by their conquerors wherever it was possible, and commanded under pain of excommunication that all Indian slaves in the islands should be set free. Gregory XIV also appointed a commission to revise the Sixtine Bible and another commission to continue the revision of the Pian Breviary.

So, in spite of his relatively short life (56 years) and brief reign, he had contact with three men who would be declared saints: Borromeo, Neri, and de Lellis!

First image: St. Charles Borromeo intercedes for plague victims by Jordaens.
Second image: St. Philip Neri by Tiepolo
Third image: St. Camillus helping the plague victims by Subleyras

T. B. Macauley Admires the Papacy

On the anniversary of Thomas Babington Macaulay's birthday on October 25 in 1800, it seems appropriate to quote his interesting words on the Catholic Church from a review of Ranke's History of the Popes.

Read the rest here.

Also on this date, in 1970, Pope Paul VI canonized the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

England and the Papacy, Part One: Book Review

It is commonly asserted that the English never got along with the papacy--that there was a long history of conflict between the English state and the Popes. This fact is often used to explain the English Reformation as a natural development of history, occasioned finally and decisively by Henry VIII's marital crisis. These two books, however, The English Church & the Papacy in the Middle Ages, edited by C.H. Lawrence and The Cardinal Protectors of England: Rome and the Tudors before the Reformation by William E. Wilkie, may cast some doubt on that truism.

The first book was issued in 1965 and revised in 1999 by Sutton Publishing. Each chapter includes a Select Bibliography. The book does not offer biographies of the contributors. Contents:

Introduction by C.H. Lawrence
Chapter 1: The Celtic Church and the Papacy, by Kathleen Hughes
Chapter 2: The Anglo-Saxon Church and the Papacy by Veronica Ortenberg (new for the 1999 edition)
Chapter 3: From the Conquest to the Death of John by Charles Duggan
Chapter 4: The Thirteenth Century by C.H. Lawrence
Chapter 5: The Fourteenth Century by W.A. Pantin
Chapter 6: The Fifteenth Century by F.R.H. DuBoulay
Index

The first chapter is refreshingly free of the Thomas Cahill-type conflict between Celtic and Roman Catholicism in which the Roman Catholic Church is rigid and evil and the Celtic Church all humane and wonderful. Instead, Kathleen Hughes surveys the interaction between the Papacy and Celtic bishops and culture without that polemic edge, while still covering the issues about the of Easter and discipline throughout the Church.

In the second, new chapter for the 1999 edition, Veronica Ortenberg describes the very close relationship between the Catholic Church in England  and the Papacy during the Anglo-Saxon era, including of course, Pope St. Gregory the Great sending St. Augustine of Canterbury to Kent. She demonstrates how devoted Catholics in England at that time were to the Popes as the successors of St. Peter, how regularly bishops and laity travelled to Rome on pilgrimage, and how much correspondence, usually requesting and offering papal guidance, was exchanged.

As expected from the title, the third chapter covers, although with the assumption of the reader's prior knowledge of the outline of events, the conflicts between Henry II and St. Thomas a Becket, and John and Innocent III, noting that in the latter case, at least, once the crisis was resolved John gained a great deal of support from the pope, especially after making England a vassal of Innocent III.

The editor, in addition to providing the introduction, offers the chapter on the 13th century. With his background in the history of the monastic and mendicant movements, you'd expect him to include them in this chapter, and he matches your expectations.

W.A. Pantin, of course, is the author of The English Church in the Fourteenth Century, which is an essential book for knowledge of the Church in late medieval England, so his chapter is an excellent summary of the reform efforts in that century.

With the last chapter, we come into the period of Avignon Papacy, the Conciliar Movement, and the Tudor Dynasty, which sets up the transition to the William Wilkie book about the Cardinal Protectors, which I'll discuss tomorrow. I found  The English Church & the Papacy in the Middle Ages to have all the virtues and faults of a collection of essays by different authors: different writing styles, variations in points of view, etc., but all with the same high level of scholarship.