Pope Francis & Cardinal Burke - A Flashback to Peter & Paul?

With all of the press coverage on the synod this past week, I had several opportunities to hear from my former shepherd here in St. Louis, Cardinal Burke. I wrote about Cardinal Burke in one of my first blog posts and how I admired his ability to take stands that were unpopular in the culture at large (even among large swathes of his flock) - but completely faithful to Christ and his duty as a shepherd.

When the release of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family's relatio post disceptationem (report after the debate) earlier this week caused tremendous confusion throughout the Catholic world, Cardinal Burke felt compelled to speak up as to how the relatio did not faithfully reflect the bulk of the conversation engaged in by synod participants. The Vatican released a new, more precise English translation days later; but it did little to allay the difficulties seen by synod participants.


In his interview with Carl Olsen, Cardinal Burke said:

"The document lacks a solid foundation in the Sacred Scriptures and the Magisterium. In a matter on which the Church has a very rich and clear teaching, it gives the impression of inventing a totally new, what one Synod Father called “revolutionary,”teaching on marriage and the family. It invokes repeatedly and in a confused manner principles which are not defined, for example, the law of graduality."

The relatio was largely seen as being in agreement with Cardinal Kasper of Germany's proposal to change the Church's discipline that those who had divorced and remarried (without having their first marriage investigated and found to be sacramentally invalid) were unable to present themselves to receive Holy Communion (see Mt. 19:9; 1 Cor. 11:28-32). Over the past year, when giving interviews, Cardinal Kasper had presented his proposal as representing Pope Francis' own wishes for a change in discipline. The release of the relatio - granted, only a working document - was still taken by the mainstream media as a confirmation of this.


When Cardinal Burke was asked about how important he believed it was for Pope Francis  to make a statement reaffirming, for the faithful, the ancient, orthodox teaching of Christ and the Church on this serious matter, the Cardinal replied:

"In my judgment, such a statement is long overdue. The debate on these questions has been going forward now for almost nine months, especially in the secular media but also through the speeches and interviews of Cardinal Walter Kasper and others who support his position. The faithful and their good shepherds are looking to the Vicar of Christ for the confirmation of the Catholic faith and practice regarding marriage which is the first cell of the life of the Church."

And I have seen how the mainstream media has pounced: "Cardinal Burke at odds with Pope Francis." No.  The Cardinal retains his complete allegiance to Pope Francis as the Vicar of Christ. In his words, at every step, Pope Francis has articulated Christianity's ancient understanding of Christ's words on the indissolubility of marriage, as well as how marriage is constituted by the union of man and woman.  What Cardinal Burke has given voice to is the confusion he sees being expressed among the faithful, in response to the relatio and its coverage in the media; and how the Cardinal sees Pope Francis' silence as adding to the misunderstanding. It cannot be easy for Cardinal Burke to say that, but I believe he does so out of a sincere love for Pope Francis and the entire Church.


My mind immediately goes back to the disagreement between Paul and Peter recounted in Galatians.  Paul, who had nothing but respect for Peter, and recognized the preeminent authority entrusted to him by Christ (Gal. 1:18; 2:1-2, 7-10), took issue with Peter's behavior.  Yes, Peter who had so clearly articulated God's welcome of the Gentiles into the Church - and without need for them to follow the ceremonial portions of the Mosaic Law - was behaving as if those things were necessary...and in the process, causing confusion.  And so Paul tells us how:


"...when Cephas [Aramaic for Rock, Peter] came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And with him the rest of the Jews acted insincerely, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their insincerity. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, 'If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?' We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet who know that a man is not by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ" (Gal. 2:11-16).


Cardinal Burke's words should be understood in this same way. And please, I hope no one is jumping to the wild conclusion that papal infallibility is being called into question!  As all of us know, papal infallibility applies only to the Pope's official teachings, (1) as the Successor of Peter, (2) addressed to the entire Church, (3) on matters of faith and morals.  Cardinal Burke is simply pointing out what he believes to be a negative effect of Pope Francis' silence on a matter of great importance. The Pope and the Cardinal are brothers, intent on serving the same Master. In their heart of hearts they both want what is best for Christ's flock. You and I should pray that the Lord remove every obstacle that might stand in the way of that goal. Pray for Pope Francis, and please pray for all who, with him, and under his authority, share the responsibility of shepherding the Lord's flock.

EVERY Christian Has a Pope (It's Simply a Question of "Who?")

Whether we are Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, "non-denominational," or a variety of Christian somewhere in between, each of us has a pope.  Each of us has someone we:

1) look to for direction in living the Christian life, and
2) appeal to as an authority in explaining why we interpret Jesus' teachings the way we do.  

It might be the founder of your denomination, a favorite author, pastor, or ... simply yourself.

Some may object, "I just go by what the Bible tells me.  I don't need someone to interpret what Jesus said to me."  But my friends, unless you are reading the Bible in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, you are depending on someone else's interpretation of what Jesus said! And even if you are reading the Bible in its original languages, you still have interpret the meaning - the intent - of its words.  Let me give a few examples:  

• When you read the gospel accounts of Jesus' Last Supper, if you understand His words "This is My Body" and "This is My Blood," to mean anything other than that the bread and wine have literally become His Body and Blood, then you are engaged in interpretation.  The same can be said of Jesus' words in John's Gospel, "My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.  He who eats [trogein in Greek, meaning "chews, gnaws on"] my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him" (Jn.6:55-56).

• Jesus told the Apostles, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (Jn.20:23).  If you do not believe that Jesus gave the shepherds of His Church the power, in His Name, to forgive sins, then you are engaged in some type of interpretation.

• If you believe that we are saved through faith alone, and that works play absolute no part in obtaining final salvation, then you are interpreting the Epistle of James (the only place in the Bible where you find the phrase "faith alone") in some sense other than the text's face-value, "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone" (Jas.2:24).

Now, if you have read these verses (or the multitude of similar ones) but haven't experienced a pull toward the Catholic Church you either

a)  haven't truly wrestled with them, or 
b)  believe there is another way to interpret them

We Catholics are very comfortable with their face-value meaning.  If you understand them in a way other than at face-value however, what is your authority for that?  What is the weight of your argument?  Whose insight are you relying on, and what are their (or your) credentials?  

I glossed over or tried interpreting them other ways - for a couple of years - but the more I learned, the more I found myself humbled.  Time after time, when I really dug into Scripture and how it was understood by its earliest readers - in 70 A.D., 90 A.D., 107 A.D., 150 A.D. - those in a far better position to understand its original meaning, their interpretation always matched what was being said by the Pope today! 

I realized how I had went for years denying the Pope's gift of  infallibility, but acting as if I was infallible!  (And seriously, what credentials did I have?)  I denied that the Pope was the Successor of Peter, holding the "the keys of the Kingdom," with the power to "bind and loose" (Mt.16:19) but lived my life as if I did - as if I was the final arbiter of what Christ taught!  The thing is, when I finally buckled down and did the research, every piece of historical evidence spoke in the Popes' favor instead of mine (or anyone else's)!  Here's but one example.
 
A little unsettling to think about?  Tell me about it.  What it finally came down to for me was this:  "Jesus, I know that you didn't appoint me as an infallible authority.  I need help, I need guidance, to understand Your teaching and how to live it out.  If You appointed the Pope as a shepherd for me - and I am now convinced that You did - then I accept him."

Each of us has a pope, it's just a matter of, "Who?"

When Our Shepherds Sin ...

I recently wrote a post on why we Catholics continue to profess the holiness of the Church, even amidst sinful decisions by bishops and priests.  We may have another example of that playing itself out in Los Angeles, as more information emerges of Cardinal Mahony’s handling of cases of sexual abuse by priests in the 1980’s.  It is hard to read such things and think about the sins and failures of those given the most sacred of trusts.  Where priests have been guilty of crimes they should of course, like anyone else, be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.   But their actions, as evil as they are, do not cause me to condemn “the Church,” or the offices of presbyter (priest) or bishop that these men held.   What follows is a piece I wrote 15 years ago, focusing on the sinful actions of past popes, that shares some of my reasons why: 

It is common knowledge that the Popes during the Middle Ages were not angels. Several of them lived lives of debauchery. Does that debunk the claim that they possessed the charism of infallibility? Not in the least. It is a scandal, and it damaged the witness of the Church; but it does not damage the integrity of The Faith.

Each Christian reading this can demonstrate the truth of what I am saying for him or herself. We need only think of our own sinfulness, and the many ways in which we have failed to live as Christ commands. Do our sins cause Christ’s Gospel to be any less true? No, not one iota. When we proclaim that Gospel we may sometimes be hypocritical, but what we proclaim is not falsified. Caiaphas, the high priest who along with Pilate condemned Jesus to death, was used by the Holy Spirit to utter prophecy (John 11:49-52). Christ, with perfect foreknowledge, chose Judas to be one of His Twelve Apostles. Why?  Perhaps to prepare us for when the successors of the Apostles,  the bishops, and especially Peter’s Successors, the pope, fall from grace.

Judas’ betrayal did nothing to diminish the office of apostle. Likewise, the personal sinfulness of someone in Peter’s office does not diminish the authority nor function of the Key-Bearer. When we think about atrocities, such as the later Crusades, we have to keep this in mind; they were monstrous, horrendous actions; but they were not instances of the Popes making proclamations as to what constitutes the Deposit of Faith.

Sometimes we have to look at the men sitting in Peter’s Chair as a delinquent parent. We respect them not because of their actions, but solely because of their relation to us (through the Blood of Christ) and the position of authority which God the Father has allowed them to assume. An Old Testament image of this is the relationship between David and King Saul.

Saul was the first King of Israel. His reign started out well, but he eventually fell into disobedience to the Lord’s command. Scripture tells us that because of this, even while Saul reigned, the prophet Samuel was sent by the Lord to secretly anoint a young shepherd, David, as the future king. David eventually killed Goliath, became very close to King Saul and his family, and distinguished himself as a warrior. When David’s popularity in Israel grew greater than even Saul’s, however, the reigning king became jealous and began plotting David’s death. When David caught wind of Saul’s intent he went into hiding. Saul pursued him into the desert. What I want to draw your attention to was David’s reaction: two times the Lord delivered King Saul’s life into David’s hands, but David responded, “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the LORD’s anointed, to put forth my hand against him, seeing he is the LORD’s anointed” (1 Samuel 24:6); “who can lay hands on the LORD’s anointed, and be guiltless? As the Lord lives, the Lord will smite him” (1 Samuel 26:9-10). It was not the man Saul whom David honored but the office which the Lord God had established. Far from being a simpleton, David is the only man whom Scripture calls a man after God’s Own Heart (1 Samuel 13:14). Our attitude in dealing with sinful bishops and Popes must be the same as David’s.

The way God uses sinful human beings to convey His Revelation is one of the truly great surprises in salvation history. It may seem like a tremendous risk on God’s part; perhaps it is simply a commentary on the power of His grace and the Word which He has entrusted to His Church. There is an Old Testament story that gives me a humble chuckle. The Lord “opened the mouth of [an] ass,” a donkey, and gave it the power of speech (Numbers 22:28). I have to laugh at how many other asses He has bestowed the power of speech upon to further the Gospel; I can only hope that when my life comes to an end I will find myself ranked among them.

The Gag Reflex

Papal infallibility = God's Gag Reflex. Irreverent of me? Don't cry "blasphemy" just yet; all will be explained.

That picture is awesome though. Must...look...away...to begin writing. Alright, lets establish what the Church means by papal infallibility. Bottom line - the pope is protected from teaching something that is false, WHEN a very specific set of criteria is met:

1. He speaks as the Successor of Peter, Head of the Apostles
2. upon a matter of faith or morals,
3. with the intention of instructing the entire Church

So the Catholic Church is NOT claiming that the Pope:

• is infallible when he reflects on the readings during a Sunday homily
  
• speaks infallibly on matters of science, mathematics, economic policy, politics, etc.
• will speak out when he should (cowardice could keep him from speaking at all)
  
• will enunciate the truth as clearly as is possible
• doesn't sin (that would be impeccability, not infalliblity; and the Church has NEVER claimed impeccability for the Pope.)

The Church's ONLY claim regarding papal infallibility is that when three criteria are met, God will RESTRAIN the Pope from saying something FALSE. (Yeah, when I called it the "Divine Gag Reflex," I was talking about a different kind of "gag" - the kind you stuff in a mouth. I know, I'm horrible. Got you reading though, didn't I?) Infallibility is a completely negative gift; God will not allow the Pope to insert something false into the official body of Truth entrusted by Jesus to the Church. God would "reflexively" act to stop such an attempt.

Where do we Catholics come up with this belief? Like everything else, we trace it back to Jesus. He made some pretty startling promises to those Apostles:

“He who hears you hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me” (Luke 10:16)
"[The Holy Spirit] will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. . .He will guide you into all the truth” (John 14:26; 16:13)

Paul the Apostle, knowing Jesus' teaching, and himself moved by the Holy Spirit, wrote of "the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). WOW - Jesus' intent was for the Church to be the place that the world could turn to hear the Truth, to get a reality check. And what measures did He, does He, take to guarantee this?

He called a fisherman named Simon, and after changing his name to Peter (Rock), Jesus told him, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19). The Jewish mind of the first century, hearing those words, would have immediately shot back to the Israelite monarchy. Jesus was adopting the terminology used to refer to the Master of the Palace, or vizier - what we today would call the "Prime Minister." He was second in command after the king (2 Kings 18:18; 15:5), and as such held "the keys of the kingdom." Flip to Isaiah 22:21-23 and examine how Jesus made use of the same vocabulary in speaking to Simon-Peter.

Jesus, in announcing the Kingdom of God, was announcing that all of the promises God had made to King David about an everlasting kingdom, were about to be fulfilled. Jesus, the descendant of David, was the long-awaited Messiah; and He was renewing Israel. Israel had begun with the 12 sons of Jacob - its renewal with the 12 Apostles of King (Christ) Jesus. And Peter was to be the Prime Minister, using the power of the keys to bind God's people to Truth and the way of Love. It would be meaningless to speak of the authority of other ministers to bind and loose apart from their unity with Peter. Jesus' purpose wasn't to make Peter some type of dictator in regard to the other Apostles; in Christ’s Kingdom the greatest is meant to serve the rest. Part of Peter's service, and that of the Popes who have succeeded him in office, is to speak the final word when matters are in dispute, thus maintaining the unity of the Church/Kingdom. This service is especially important when the ones arguing are fellow shepherds.

And so we have Jesus' words to Peter, "You are Rock, and on this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt.16:17-19). What is the power of hell? Deception. The devil deceives; that's always been his M.O. And to combat this Jesus gave Peter the keys - authority to speak out, definitively binding the Church to Truth and loosing it from deception.

Now, Jesus can't mean that Peter gets to flip a coin, decide what is true, and God will magically rearrange spiritual and temporal realities to make it so. God isn't manipulated! No, Peter is simply a minister in Another's Kingdom. Peter speaks to the Church and world on behalf of the King (Who has ascended into Heaven). To use the power of the keys demands a reflexive action on God's part - "gagging" Peter, preventing him in some way, if he ever attempted to teach something that was false. At the same time, when God allows Peter to teach the Church, He expects it to be adhered to. Ignoring Peter? Well, remember what Jesus had said, "“He who hears you hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me” (Luke 10:16). Whenever the pope speaks in his official capacity (remember those 3 criteria I started with?) as Successor to Peter, Prime Minister of the Kingdom, the same is true.

Oh hey, I do recall Jesus talking about having a gag reflex - yes, a true, biological gag reflex. After His resurrection He told the Apostle John to write a letter to the church in Laodicea, "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth" (Revelation 3:15-16).

Hey, three shout-outs before I wrap up. First, to Strunk - did you notice that I used your word "irreverent?" Second, to Pete for his encouragement and prayers. And third, to Duran Duran for their song The Reflex. I think we can all agree that that's a gift that keeps on giving.