What Does the Pope Have to Do with Our Being Catholic?

Some would say nothing; others would say everything.  Both sides are right . . . and wrong.

Hey, one of the fundamental requirements for being Catholic, as well as Christian -- as well as human, for that matter -- is to make friends with paradox.  Life is not a neat and tidy little package, and there's a lot of apparent contradictions that are simply beyond our power to resolve to our satisfaction.  Like the "core belief" we started with a few weeks ago, the Trinity -- one God, three Persons -- a paradox. And the Incarnation, Christ as fully God and fully human -- a paradox.  And the Eucharist -- all the observable elements of nature, bread and wine, remain, but the substance, the underlying reality, is truly changed and becomes the body and blood of Christ -- a paradox.  So, why shouldn't the Pope be a paradox?

Last week I ventured the opinion that the core beliefs of Catholic faith "boil down to just two: the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome."  Then I discussed the "Real Presence."  Some might say that many Protestant churches, including Anglicans/Episcopalians, celebrate the Eucharist and have a belief similar to ours.  True, but none of them meet the criteria that we hold are essential for the complete reality (or validity) of the Eucharist as we understand and believe.  That's a loaded statement on an ecumenically sensitive issue, and it needs to be unpacked and nuanced.  But that's for another time.  Of course, the place of the Pope in the Church is another sensitive issue, and that's the concern of this little essay.

First we need to be clear that the Pope is the Bishop of Rome, just like any other bishop is bishop of a particular local church, whether Los Angeles or Las Vegas or Talahassee or Talibon . . . or wherever.  The Pope's relationship -- personal or official -- with other bishops, or with all Catholics worldwide, is not the heart of the issue. It's the relationship of the local Church (or diocese) of Rome with other local churches (dioceses).  Because St. Peter, whose name means "rock," was singled out for a foundational role among the gathered disciples (see Matthew 16:18 -- the word "church" etymologically means "the people called together") and because tradition has it that he was the first Bishop of Rome, the same tradition has held that the Church of Rome, and therefore its bishop, has a unique relationship of both honor and authority among all the other churches and their bishops.  We call this relationship primacy.

Christianity, from the age of the Apostles, has placed an essential value on unity and continuity, that is, the various local churches are authenticated both by their unity with one another, expressed in mutual recognition by the bishops of one another's legitimacy, and their continuity with the faith-community of the Apostles (i.e., the early Church) expressed through what is called "apostolic succession."  As important as an individual's, or even a group's, personal faith truly is, the communal values of unity and continuity are more essential to the identity of the Church.  Otherwise, the church becomes a conglomeration of individualistic do-it-yourselfers.

Apostolic succession is a fundamental criterion for a local church to be authentically Catholic. There must be an unbroken line of authority, through ordination, from the beginning down to our own day, and an essential element of that "unbroken line" is union with the local Church of Rome.  Thus our second "core belief," without which we are not Catholic, can be simply labeled "apostolic succession," which must include organic union of all local churches with the Church of Rome.

What happened to Christians throughout the centuries to produce the disunity and fragmentation we experience today?  First of all, the various Orthodox Churches have maintained apostolic succession and valid ordinations of bishops and priests, and therefore a valid celebration of the Eucharist, but split from unity with the Church of Rome in 1054.  This was for a variety of tragically unfortunate and complex historical reasons, and sadly the division is still a long way from being healed.  The Protestants (including Anglicans), for a variety of reasons, many of which legitimately addressed real abuses and even theological problems within the Catholic Church, not only broke the continuity of apostolic succession but also repudiated union with Rome.  And that twofold fracture seems also a long way from healing.

Needless to say, both Orthodox and Protestant Christians would express this division differently, and would not see our core beliefs in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and Primacy of the Bishop of Rome to be as central as we do.  I call these "core beliefs" of Catholic faith simply because these pinpoint the heart of the difference between Catholic faith and all other Christian faiths.  On the one hand, while there are undoubtedly many reasons why people choose to be or remain Catholic, these two core beliefs have to be at the center.

Obviously much more can (and must) be said.  And I suspect what I have written over the past few weeks may raise more questions (and perhaps objections) than are answered.  I hope, however, that, in trying to be concise, I have also been relatively clear.  The more I have studied and and reflected in recent years, the more it seems to me that these four core beliefs -- two generically Christian and two specifically Catholic -- serve as hooks on which all other elements of our faith, from the smallest to the greatest, can be hung.  Or to change analogies, they serve as the four foundational pillars, rising up from the One Foundation which is Jesus Christ himself, of who and what we are as Catholic Church.

May God continue to bless you and all those you love.  I love you.

Fr. Tom Welbers

P.S. You might be inclined to point out my inconsistency in capitalization of Church/church and Bishop/bishop.  If you look closely, I have tried to capitalize them only when referring to a particular church or bishop, e.g. "the Bishop of the local Church of Fresno," but not when they are used generically, "a bishop in his own local church." 

P.P.S.  This Monday, August 16, is the last of six scheduled presentations on "the History and Heritage of our Faith" at 7:00 pm in the parish hall.  Our topic will move us from the twentieth century into the twenty-first, examining first the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, and the turbulent years following it, up to today.  The title, "Reform and Resourcement; Controversy and Conflict", I think sums it up pretty well.  (Yeah, I like parallel contrasts and alliteration.)  However, because I was not able to deal with questions at the time of the presentations, I've been asked to do another session just to deal with questions that were raised.  So, there will be an additional session, devoted exclusively to questions and answers, the following Monday, same time and same place.  I'm calling this session, "Your turn . . . have at Fr. Tom!"  Don't forget that all the lectures and the notes are available online at http://tomwelbers.net. Also, new information on the 2011 Early Christian World Pilgrimage to Turkey, April 25 to May 14, 2011, is continually being posted at http://ecwpilgrimage.org.  There is some very good news about how to get there and back!  Check it out.