Tag: theology

The “Ius Gentium Dei” – Towards contextualizing some current crises in ecclesiology and law

Christian Renaissance Movement

Below is the text of a paper I delivered today at this year’s “Student Theology Conference” at the Angelicum in Rome. It is just the start of the articulation… More work (especially research in older legal commentaries/authors) needs to be done.

I neglected to mention as an example in this talk that the Pope “qua” Bishop of Rome is something which would also arguably fit in my “novel” category of law.

-Eamonn Clark, STL

On September 21 of 687, Pope Conon died after a reign of several weeks – not enough time for rivalries to cool and dissipate. Conon had been a compromise candidate between the Roman clerical faction and the Roman military faction. Paschal, a former contender and now Archpriest at the Lateran Basilica, vied for the throne of St. Peter once again. His supporters, however, were less numerous than those of the Archdeacon, Theodore. After sending a bribe to the Exarch of Ravenna John II Platyn, the Emperor’s main legate in Italy, to have his papacy affirmed by Constantinople, Paschal attempted to take up residence in the Lateran with his supporters – as did Theodore with his. What followed was a nearly three month long armed conflict between the two parties inside the Lateran complex. By mid-December, the Romans had had enough, as had the Exarch. When John II Platyn was arriving in Rome, Paschal sent another bribe, which the Exarch happily took, but then he confirmed a separate candidate who had been acclaimed by politicians, soldiers, clergy, and normal civilians who were gathered on the Palatine Hill. Pope St. Sergius I was elected. Theodore relaxed his grip, and Paschal was eventually thrown into monastic prison on suspicion of witchcraft.

So goes one of several wild stories of the early medieval papacy. Of particular further note is the accession of the infamous Pope Vigilius to the Throne – who not only flirted with Monophysitism and was effectively excommunicated by the Second Council of Constantinople, but also seemingly colluded with the Emperor’s General, Belisarius, to force his predecessor Pope St. Sylverius into exile and took up the papal office while his predecessor was still alive. At least when Sylverius died, all of the Roman clergy began to treat Vigilius as pope…

Such irregularities could no doubt be multiplied – similar skirmishes surrounding the pontificates of Benedict IX immediately come to mind. This raises an important question – where does accession to the papacy fit into the broader world of law? Is it merely a matter of ecclesiastical law? This seems impossible, as there are certain qualities which one must possess to be pope, such as being baptized. Or is it a matter purely of Divine positive law? This too seems untenable, as we clearly have a manmade process today which has produced valid popes for centuries, namely, the conclave process. How do we deal with the fact that the papacy has often been treated much like the Roman imperial throne – where “might makes right” – that is, if you get enough power that is somehow related to the office – like by dominating the Lateran Palace with your army, or by forcing your predecessor into exile – you can somehow enter the office by that very fact? To drive it home, had Paschal the Archpriest successfully crowded out Theodore the Archdeacon, and the Exarch had not arrived, we would almost certainly have had Paschal as Bishop of Rome. This is, in fact, how Benedict IX regained office at least once, with respect to Clement II, seizing the Lateran in November of 1047, and perhaps also previously when expelling Sylvester III in April of 1045. Pope Damasus II ended Benedict’s third papacy when he invaded Rome with his army from Germany and forced Benedict into pious retirement in Grottaferrata.

In this paper I will present a hypothesis that there sits in between Divine positive law and ecclesiastical law a third kind of law which is analogous to the category of law which fills the gap between the natural law and civil law, namely, the “ius gentium,” the law of nations. This kind of law, which I will refer to as the “ius Gentium Dei,” the “law of the People of God,” is relevant not only for solving difficult problems related to papal succession – which topic is not simply historically interesting but increases in pastoral importance in direct proportion to the growing crisis of sedevacantism – but also to topics like rights over the use of liturgies, unjust episcopal depositions, and lay governance… perhaps even doubts about the role or importance of subjective intentionality in the dispensation of the sacraments. All of these are topics on the minds of many. I will argue that collapsing these issues into Divine positive law or ecclesiastical law is a mistake, which is part of why the discussions related to these topics have proven somewhat fruitless. The task, then, is to contextualize these controversies and others like them.

The natural law is man’s participation in the Eternal Law. From the natural law, man devises artifices which provide the structure of distributive justice in civic life – ordinances of reason for the common good promulgated by one with the authoritative care for the community. This is the civil law, which can positively create moral duties, insofar as it squares with the nature of law and has within itself a legitimate presumption of morally preceptive force.

Divine positive law is, one might say, the Church’s participation in Eternal Law, which is preceptive data known through faith. Revealed precepts are given either directly or indirectly – baptize with water, confess your sins, love your enemy, pray the Our Father, and so on – and the practical life of the Church is built around these preceptive pillars. Ecclesiastical law, which essentially tracks the definition of civil law, with the qualification that faith informs the ordinance of reason, must be in accordance with Divine positive law (while also, of course, not violating natural law).

Ecclesiastical law moderates all manner of property and offices which are “possessed,” as does Divine positive law. As already mentioned, the papacy is a good example of these two kinds of law working together. This is unlike natural law, which only indicates a social order based on some kind of common life and the pursuit of truth. Civil law moderates myriad aspects of property ownership, yet we can perceive rather intuitively that it must respect the logic of the ius gentium or else become unjust. One does not acquire possession of a house merely by writing his name on the wall, for example, regardless of whether this is legislated.

Ecclesiastical laws regarding the possession of some spiritual good or authority obviously must accord with Divine positive law, but it seems they must also be in accord with something which “interprets” Divine positive law by extending it to the whole Church as a society, yet without being properly contained therein.

What I am calling the “ius Gentium Dei,” the “law of the People of God,” is the wise application of reason working through faith of the Divine positive law towards the ordering of the whole Church as a perfect society as such. It is, as the ius gentium, as conclusions drawn from premises, rather than particular determinations of higher law (cf. ST I-II q. 95).

Perfect societies, for example, have a visible head, at least habitually. The papacy is important enough that, even were there to be some crisis, such as with Sergius I or Sylverius and Vigilius or other similar cases, the fact will always remain that the Church needs a pope – the need for a successor of St. Peter is indicated by Divine positive law and by lived experience – one need only think of the extended periods during which deadlocked papal elections dragged on for months or even years, such as in the late 1200’s. Yet given that ecclesiastical law, which typically moderates this office, cannot provide for all cases, just as civil law cannot provide for all cases, sometimes appeal must be made to a higher law. Further, given that God, despite being a perfect Legislator, for whatever reason did not actually provide procedural law of any kind for the accession to the papacy, as is evidenced by the vast diversity with which real accession has occurred, no appeal can be made to Divine positive law to settle the matter. The answer lies with the wise application of reason working through faith of the Divine positive law towards the ordering of the whole Church as a perfect society as such, the ius Gentium Dei. We can accept that Sergius I was Roman Pontiff just as much as Vigilius, just as much as Benedict IX three times along with Sylvester III, Gregory VI, and Clement II, and so on. As Fr. Taparelli, grandfather of Catholic social teaching, would likely point out, the fact itself is what makes the society and allows for its contracts, not the other way around. Not to put too fine a point on it, we have a Church of popes, not a Church of the 1983 or 1917 Code of Canon Law.

In his book treating of political economy, the ghostwriter of Rerum Novarum Fr. Liberatore presents the ius gentium as a spectrum, with some items, like the very institution of private property, being closer to the natural law than other items. The papacy and its acquisition seem closer to the Divine positive law than something like rights over the use of particular liturgical customs, which is another item that very much seems not merely part of ecclesiastical law while nonetheless obviously largely subject to ecclesiastical law. The Church can legislate rather arbitrarily a lectionary, a calendar, various kinds of vestments and their colors, the kind, number, position, and use of candles, and so on. We can perceive that, beyond the proper minister and matter and form, there are in fact items which seem so fundamental to the right liturgical order that they are very likely indirectly indicated by Divine positive law; for example, that the readings precede the confection of the Eucharist – the way that Christ’s public teaching preceded His death on the Cross, the way that the prophets preceded the Incarnation, and the way that the Eternal Word of the Father precedes creation through that same Word. However, something like the attempt to introduce extra-Scriptural readings into the Mass would be less offensive but still, I think most would agree, would be illegitimate. The question is, offensive against what? It cannot be Divine positive law, as God gives no direct commandment about readings at Mass – it cannot be only against ecclesiastical law, if that law were actually to be changed. It is instead against the wise application of reason working through faith of the Divine positive law towards the ordering of the whole Church as a perfect society as such, in this case about how that society conducts acts of religion – how God is worshipped by outward, official, public acts of the Church.

No doubt, there is something which lawful authority possesses in the Church that matches the civil reality of eminent domain. One might think of Pope St. Pius V doing away with long-standing local liturgies after Trent, those of almost but not quite 200 years of age. But nobody thinks that the Roman Pontiff could, for example, legitimately (with morally preceptive force) do away with all the liturgies of the Eastern Churches simply at will, or even of a single Church. The Armenian Catholic Church, for example, has an acquired right to use their own liturgical books and rituals, within reason; the ratio for any meaningful intervention in the Armenian liturgy is and can only be what is fair with respect to the ownership of the same liturgy on the part of the entire Armenian Church. The analogy which comes to mind is that of children living under their father’s care in a common house – surely, the father owns the house in the absolute sense and exercises the fullness of authority – immediately, supremely, etc., as to domestic life and the governance of his family – but he cannot arbitrarily and indefinitely forbid the children to use the central rooms of the house, for it is their house too in a real way, albeit in a limited and participatory sense. While the supreme and immediate power of the Roman Pontiff over the whole Church is part of Divine positive law at least indirectly or even directly, the character of ownership over something like the use of particular liturgical customs, especially on the part of the faithful, is not part of Divine positive law. Rather, the articulation of that ownership, along with how it is suspended, modified, or removed, is in large part a matter of the ius Gentium Dei.

I leave aside other possible inhabitants of this category, including those already mentioned – the deposition of bishops, lay governance, and even the character of sacramental intentionality, for lack of time. Rather, I will address the problem which by now should be obvious: Who decides what is contained in the ius Gentium Dei, and, even more importantly, who decides what it demands?

My suggestion is that the answer lies with the whole Church, especially with clergy and the maiores, those who are educated. To reiterate my definition of the ius Gentium Dei, it is the wise application of reason working through faith of the Divine positive law towards the ordering of the whole Church as a perfect society as such. The key is wisdom, the knowledge of the causes of things, in this case knowledge of the causes of the flourishing of the whole Church. This principally belongs to local bishops and most of all to the Roman Pontiff. Yet the head cannot do without the foot. The various roles played by lower clergy and by educated and deputed laity to assist in the governance of the Church are critical, as is the movement of the Holy Spirit among the pious minores, the uneducated, who may by the Gift of counsel know that somehow, something is wrong about a decision about governance without fully or even significantly being able to explain why. When moving all together, problems or conflicts which are over things inside the scope of the ius Gentium Dei are normally figured out less by reasoning or acts of juridic power than by flesh and blood – over time, the solution simply appears because of the fact of the matter at hand. Such was the case with the abnormal papal accessions previously considered – so too it may be the case for various ecclesiological crises in our own day. God wants us to know that we have a pope – other than knowing someone is actually a baptized male, what else do we really need to say other than, “Well, he controls the Lateran and everyone calls him ‘Pope’”? Something similar could be said about lay governance, episcopal depositions, and even sacramental intentionality, if time allowed. The key question is something to the effect of – “Is this paradigm or set of expectations and practices workable for the whole Church with respect to Her good as a perfect society, in line with clearly revealed precepts?” This kind of argument is what needs to be taken up in the apostolate to the sedevacantists – we ought mostly to leave alone particular arguments about the 1917 CIC and the precise definition of “heresy,” let alone any particular historical questions, which, by the way, are seemingly never extended into the murky depths of the First Millennium; as if we really know anything about what men in the 700’s were teaching and preaching before their pontificates. The fact is that “they controlled the Lateran and they were called ‘Pope,’” and this is more or less everything we need to know. This is somewhat of a simplification, but it is not a very large one.

What remains to be said in this brief presentation is to insist that the ius Gentium Dei is not a “trump card” which can or should be “played” by anyone seeking some particular solution in a given conflict. Such an attitude would be the practical equivalent of the speculative error found in illegitimate appeals to the “sensus fidelium.” Just because a decision of a lawful superior seems unfair or ill-considered does not thereby render it invalid or even illicit, even though it may truly be immoral to have legislated on account of his own poor judgment, which because of his office he is specially bound to avoid. If anything, rather than simplifying particular courses of action which smack of disobedience and flippant impiety, this juridic resetting of major ecclesiological crises and questions, and the conflicts which unfortunately accompany them, is an invitation to more serious dialogue and discourse. Children should not simply disobey their father and harshly rebuke him, even when it is really the case that he is unfairly restricting their usage of the house, to return to my analogy – rather, the children must appeal to their father respectfully and plead with him (1 Timothy 5:1). Sometimes, the father lacks wisdom and thinks too much of his rights; however, this is more frequently true of the children who are bound to him in obedience.

In this presentation, which is only a sketch of an at least superficially plausible idea which requires more research and reflection, I have proposed that there is an analogous category of law in the order of revelation to the ius gentium in the order of nature, which category I have called the “ius Gentium Dei,” and I have shown how such a category could help to contextualize several pressing concerns which confront the Church today. Real solutions to these problems may yet be a long way off. However, it is no doubt extremely important both to avoid erroneously claiming one’s rights to be sanctioned directly by God and to avoid erroneously claiming that whatever such rights exist are subject entirely to the whims of the lawful superior. Instead, the via media ought to be more frequently considered, in the form of the ius Gentium Dei – in this case it is not the ”both/and” we are so accustomed to in Catholic theology but rather a rare “neither/nor.”

Roman Sunrise – Podcast Launch

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As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I am launching a podcast. It will be the flagship production of my little company’s fledgling “Media Group.” There will be other shows coming down the line… hopefully sooner rather than later.

After years of waffling and delay, I am happy to announce the show and its title: Roman Sunrise.

I don’t normally talk much about my personal life on these pages, for various reasons. The truth is, I’ve been in a bizarre hurricane of professional and existential twists and turns in the past year or so especially.

In 2016 I wanted to come to Rome for two years, just to finish the STB. Well, it’s been almost eight years at this point. I finished the STB. I finished the STL. I’m almost done now with the STD. And I am now presuming to be in Rome for the long-haul – until something obviously better induces me to leave. I have tried to leave Rome 5 times now – to return to the USA, to go elsewhere in Italy, to go teach in a seminary in Nigeria, to move to France, and to move to Ireland. It has not worked. I am resigned to staying here, in this strange city, with its barely functioning bureaucracy, its gaggles of tourists, its absurd lunch hours… I am HERE.

I don’t mean to complain. There are obviously many consolations too, both natural and supernatural, and there are far worse places to be than Rome! In the end, I actually do love it here. It’s where I’ve really grown up. It’s where most of my important friendships have been made. It’s where I’ve learned the most about God and my own journey towards Him. It is home. But it is not the paradise that people might think.

Nor is it the cartoon-villainy that others think. All the keyboard warriors sitting nice and cozy in the USA (or wherever) who think that everything bad that happens in Rome is the outcome of some concerted plot by scheming cardinals playing 5-dimensional chess have an outsized presence in social media and pseudo-journalism, and they often get huge followings because the narrative is so simple and satisfying: “FRANCIS IS TRYING TO DESTROY THE CHURCH! ACT NOW!” And then, in the next breath, they will mock “NPC’s” for saying “Orange Man Bad!” Hot tip – don’t do that.

It’s true… Roman shenanigans are sometimes very wicked, and they are sometimes very calculated. Other times – most times? – failures are due to systemic mediocrity or cultural dispositions which allow bad things to go unchecked or be magnified. “Monsignor doesn’t want to make his best friend of 40 years look bad. He’ll try to make this go away, or pass it off to someone else.” “His Eminence has a lunch reservation in 15 minutes. Then he will not be back in the office today, and he’ll just want to start the weekend early after a hard couple of days and a busy travel schedule next week. So we’re just not going to have time to deal with this right now.” “The Archbishop is not in Rome at the moment, because it’s August. It will have to wait until September, but there are other files he needs to deal with first, because there is a bit of a backlog. So maybe October or November…” “Father is afraid that the Pope won’t like that decision, so he’s just going to let this sit and hope it kind of goes away or that someone else can deal with it.”

Not exactly inspiring stuff. But not jaw-dropping scandal either. It’s the epiphenomenon that is really bad – the stuff that comes as a grand result of all the little problems. Sure, there ARE very bad actors here, other than the Devil… who is really the Enemy we need to worry about… But until you understand that most guys are really just trying to go along to get along, or were literally asked out of the blue by chance to serve as some undersecretary in a dicastery whose mission they have essentially no special competence in, or can’t get a meeting with the Cardinal Vicar because they annoyed the wrong person in the Lateran 5 years ago… you don’t really understand Rome.

I’ve had it in mind to do this podcast for years. I’m glad I waited. I’m in a position to do this show precisely because of all the years I’ve been here, living in different communities, trying different things, getting to know different “layers” of the city. Now I’m a bit seasoned. I actually know some stuff… I have a bit of a feel for what things are really like. What I want to do with the podcast is bring out some more of the complexity of stories in the headlines. There are enough doomers and gloomers out there, telling you that everything is awful, the sky is falling, etc. If that’s what you’re into, then Roman Sunrise is not for you. This podcast will do the hard thing of being fair, even to people I personally find to be very annoying, stupid, and toxic. I want to respect the truth – which sometimes means not drawing conclusions but just laying out the story, giving some context and theological insight, and letting you decide. You can be a journalist or an activist, but you can not be both at the same time in the same way.

Can you be a journalist and a theologian? I think so. But one has to be careful not to cross the wires of objective orthodoxy and individual intentions, which happens all the time. The theological aspect of the show is going to be accessible but also deep. I am repeatedly told I have the gift of breaking down complicated topics into digestible pieces. Well, I’ll do a lot of that then and go light on the nerding out. We will cover many, most, or almost all stories from a theological angle (and sometimes a canonical one, when necessary). To be very clear, I am a pretty hardline Thomist, and in other things mostly what would be called “conservative.” I am not, however, in the “everything is MODERNIST!” camp, nor am I all that impressed with the attempts at promoting or theologically demonstrating something like the implausibility of evolutionary theory. No thanks.

We will normally have a 30-45 minute show covering three or four major news stories or other things which I personally find interesting that are going on in the world of theology and pastoral practice, in the broadest sense. Occasionally, we will do a human interest piece, or some kind of historical or cultural exposition. I’ll stash away a few episodes recorded way in advance to pull out when I can’t get around to recording a fresh one for whatever reason.

Almost every week I will have a co-host – regulars whom you will get to know a bit. Guests will be on every month or so. Part of the advantage of the approach the show will take is that a lot of different characters will possibly be open to talking to us… Not just the same handful of people, every time, with the same predictable opinions on the controversy du jour. At least, this is my hope.

My dream for Roman Sunrise is that it becomes the talk show where people go for serious, nuanced discussions about Church news from a deeply theologically informed perspective.

Mid-March will be the right time for this to launch. Your Friday morning commute on Tax Day (March 15 – YIKES, IT IS COMING!) will hopefully be accompanied by the inaugural episode of Roman Sunrise…

Why that title? Well, it evokes “morning talk show” vibes, which is nice. It has a hopeful feel to it, which is great. And anyone who has actually seen a sunrise in Rome knows that it’s something you wouldn’t mind seeing again. So, there you have it. And come on, do we need a show with a Latin title telling you that THIS is the show that will “save the Church” or whatever? Again, if that kind of thing is what you’re into, take a hard pass. Or, give it a chance, and maybe see that the clickbait stuff is the journalistic equivalent of junk food. Maybe my content won’t always taste the best, but deep down you will know that it’s healthier for you…

We will be the only English-language podcast in Rome covering both news and theology in any depth. I’m glad you can be part of this! I will post about how to find and follow us on various platforms in the days before the launch. (I might put up an “Episode 0” just to establish our active existence.)

If you would like to help with financing this project, or other upcoming projects in Pro Fide Media Group (which will be creating an independent “ground-up” Catholic communications empire, beginning in Africa), please contact me.

The only poster on Amazon…

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…that has the Books of the Bible.

My company is selling it. All the other posters you can find that are marketed as “Books of the Bible” are Protestant canons – so they are missing some books.

Click HERE

Buy a copy for yourself, your parish, your school, your friend…

I’ve been silent on these pages lately – I needed a break. It might be time to come back to more regular posting.

Some thoughts on “Fiducia Supplicans”

Christian Renaissance Movement

We could have done without it.

There are a few questions I have – “doubts,” one might say…

  1. What exactly was the need for addressing this issue in the first place, as opposed to any number of issues which seem much more pressing and much more serious to the vast majority of informed observers, especially given the very recent (and largely opposite) treatment by the DDF?
  2. Is it Roman opinion that there were clergy “on the fence” about this practice who will now fundamentally change how they minister?
  3. Did not occur to the DDF that, in fact, all kinds of “irregular couples” have been blessed for ages – even “liturgically” in the strictest sense – ever since such people have showed up at Mass and stayed to the end, when everyone present gets a blessing?
  4. Why is it presumed to be appropriate or advantageous to give “one” blessing to two people whose “couplehood” in and of itself clearly presents seriously problematic moral data, rather than two individual blessings to the two individuals of the “couple” (or however many members of a polyamorous relationship)? (This is the most important question.) Is it because some priests have very tired arms and can only muster one motion of the hand? Or are drive-by blessings a thing in some places? Yes, no? What is it?
  5. If the confusion and blowback were foreseen, what is the need for all the explanation, especially since the document said not to expect clarification? If the confusion and blowback were not foreseen, why? What is the plan to keep this from happening again? Is there one?
  6. If “irregular couples” can be blessed “non-liturgically” or “pastorally,” does this extend to other groups or associations which of themselves or in their proper context are morally problematic, such as terrorist camps, conventions of abortionists, and other such entities, especially given that these seem to need grace even more than “irregular couples”? If not, why not? Is it merely a prudential consideration, or is it something intrinsic to the act itself?
  7. Why was it not recommended instead merely to pray for “irregular couples,” rather than to “bless” them, especially given that much of the world is unable to distinguish “blessing a couple” from “blessing a union” or even from “witnessing a marriage”?

So, those are some questions. The argument that some have made about cohabiting heterosexual couples receiving blessings (i.e. in the context of a marriage preparation session) fails; the reason is that such a relationship does not present a problem in and of itself the way that adulterous, homosexual, or polygamous relationships do. There is a legitimate “telos” or “end” of the relationship as such with a single man and a single woman. Not so with the “irregular.”

I really do think that ignorance is a better explanation than malice. I also think that Fiducia Supplicans, for all its issues, has called attention to a serious problem which has until now not been so evident – we have a very weak understanding all around of what exactly “blessings” are and how they work. I hope to do a follow-up post in some weeks to go through some points which could be helpful (i.e. the distinction between invocative blessings and constitutive blessings).

We need to pray. Don’t get angry, get pious.

The Cave of Revelation

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On the little island of Patmos in Greece, where it is said that the apostle St. John lived out his last days (dying around the year 100), there is a revered cave where it is believed he lived and wrote the Book of Revelation (and presumably his 3 other letters as well – but perhaps not the Gospel bearing his name). The part that is fenced off is where John rested his head to sleep at night.

It is always helpful to remember the flesh and blood history of our Faith. Sites like this are so important to know about and to see – even if only on a screen.

Happy Feast of St. John!

Herod the Great – Even less great than you thought

Christian Renaissance Movement

Pharaoh is the archetypal bad guy. All the other bad guys in Scripture are to be measured against him. (Even poor King Solomon becomes like Pharaoh… A post for another time.)

Herod the Great is very much like Pharaoh… A great builder of monuments, a paranoid egomaniac desperate to cling to power, and a panick-stricken child-killer. He exceeds Pharaoh in that he doesn’t even have scruples about destroying his own bloodline, and deliberately so… Oddly, given his tribal background, in a twisted desire to prove just how much of a real Jew he is. It’s some kind of neurosis that is driving him…

It is important to be aware that the situation of things in ancient Israel was alive and real. The way we talk about current political, theological, and social controversies is not so different from the way people spoke in Jerusalem and its environs. Cartoonish ideas about a bunch of illiterate goat-herders with a few kings in castles need to be left behind… This was a complex world full of clever and tough people.

Here’s an excellent breakdown of what we know about the Herodian dynasty. It turns out we know quite a bit. Happy reading.

Wisdom from Lateran IV

Christian Renaissance Movement

I am doing an on-and-off study of the Ecumenical Councils. We ARE the Councils. We are MORE than the Councils, but they are somewhat of the backbone for our history as a Church.

I just thought I would share the following paragraphs, without commentary. Lateran IV is probably one of the most important Councils we have ever had. Notably, St. Dominic was there.

23. Churches are to be without a prelate for no more than 3 months

Lest a rapacious wolf attack the Lord’s flock for want of a shepherd, or lest a widowed church suffer grave injury to its good, we decree, desiring to counteract the danger to souls in this matter and to provide protection for the churches, that a cathedral church or a church of the regular clergy is not to remain without a prelate for more than three months. If the election has not been held within this time, provided there is no just impediment, then those who ought to have made the election are to lose the power to elect for that time and it is to devolve upon the person who is recognized as the immediate superior. The person upon whom the power has devolved, mindful of the Lord, shall not delay beyond three months in canonically providing the widowed church, with the advice of his chapter and of other prudent men, with a suitable person from the same church, or from another if a worthy candidate cannot be found in the former, if he wishes to avoid canonical penalty.

24. Democratic election of pastors

On account of the various forms of elections which some try to invent, there arise many difficulties and great dangers for the bereaved churches. We therefore decree that at the holding of an election, when all are present who ought to, want to and conveniently can take part, three trustworthy persons shall be chosen from the college who will diligently find out, in confidence and individually, the opinions of everybody. After they have committed the result to writing, they shall together quickly announce it. There shall be no further appeal, so that after a scrutiny that person shall be elected upon whom all or the greater or sounder part of the chapter agree. Or else the power of electing shall be committed to some suitable persons who, acting on behalf of everybody, shall provide the bereaved church with a pastor. Otherwise the election made shall not be valid, unless perchance it was made by all together as if by divine inspiration and without flaw. Those who attempt to make an election contrary to the aforesaid forms shall be deprived of the power of electing on that occasion. We absolutely forbid anyone to appoint a proxy in the matter of an election, unless he is absent from the place where he ought to receive the summons and is detained from coming by a lawful impediment. He shall take an oath about this, if necessary, and then he may commit his representation to one of the college, if he so wishes. We also condemn clandestine elections and order that as soon as an election has taken place it should be solemnly published.

25. Invalid elections

Whoever presumes to consent to his being elected through abuse of the secular power, against canonical freedom, both forfeits the benefit of being elected and becomes ineligible, and he cannot be elected to any dignity without a dispensation. Those who venture to take part in elections of this kind, which we declare to be invalid by the law itself, shall be suspended from their offices and benefices for three years and during that time shall be deprived of the power to elect.

26. Nominees for prelatures to be carefully screened

There is nothing more harmful to God’s church than for unworthy prelates to be entrusted with the government of souls. Wishing therefore to provide the necessary remedy for this disease, we decree by this irrevocable constitution that when anyone has been entrusted with the government of souls, then he who holds the right to confirm him should diligently examine both the process of the election and the character of the person elected, so that when everything is in order he may confirm him. For, if confirmation was granted in advance when everything was not in order, then not only would the person improperly promoted have to be rejected but also the author of the improper promotion would have to be punished. We decree that the latter shall be punished in the following way: if his negligence has been proved, especially if he has approved a man of insufficient learning or dishonest life or unlawful age, he shall not only lose the power of confirming the person’s first successor but shall also, lest by any chance he escapes punishment, be suspended from receiving the fruits of his own benefice until it is right for him to be granted a pardon. If he is convicted of having erred intentionally in the matter, then he is to be subject to graver punishment. Bishops too, if they wish to avoid canonical punishment, should take care to promote to holy orders and to ecclesiastical dignities men who will be able to discharge worthily the office entrusted to them. Those who are immediately subject to the Roman pontiff shall, to obtain confirmation of their office, present themselves personally to him, if this can conveniently be done, or send suitable persons through whom a careful inquiry can be made about the process of the election and the persons elected. In this way, on the strength of the pontiff’s informed judgment, they may finally enter into the fullness of their office, when there is no impediment in canon law. For a time, however, those who are in very distant parts, namely outside Italy, if they were elected peaceably, may by dispensation, on account of the needs and benefit of the churches, administer in things spiritual and temporal, but in such a way that they alienate nothing whatever of the church’s goods. They may receive the customary consecration or blessing.

27. Candidates for the priesthood to be carefully trained and scrutinized

To guide souls is a supreme art. We therefore strictly order bishops carefully to prepare those who are to be promoted to the priesthood and to instruct them, either by themselves or through other suitable persons, in the divine services and the sacraments of the church, so that they may be able to celebrate them correctly. But if they presume henceforth to ordain the ignorant and unformed, which can indeed easily be detected, we decree that both the ordainers and those ordained are to be subject to severe punishment. For it is preferable, especially in the ordination of priests, to have a few good ministers than many bad ones, for if a blind man leads another blind man, both will fall into the pit.

28. Who asks to resign must resign

Certain persons insistently ask for permission to resign and obtain it, but then do not resign. Since in such a request to resign they would seem to have in mind either the good of the churches over which they preside or their own well-being, neither of which do we wish to be impeded either by the arguments of any people seeking their own interests or even by a certain fickleness, we therefore decree that such persons are to be compelled to resign.

The Scylla and Charybdis of Priestly Vocations

Christian Renaissance Movement1 Comment

When one reads St. Thomas Aquinas on entrance into the religious life, one realizes the immensity of the gap between the 13th century and our own time. Thomas has a Nike solution to the question… “Just do it.” He basically rejects the opinion that one needs to consider the matter very carefully… It is not so important. And you do not need to be particularly virtuous, either. Religious life is a ministry TO the religious. It contains the healing salve for the three sources of sin (the world, the flesh, and the Devil), and the three movements which come from them (concupiscence of the eyes, concupiscence of the flesh, and the pride of life). Our Lord faced these three temptations in the desert. And His advice to overcome these temptations is poverty, chastity, and obedience. The mortification of the roots of sin will move a soul closer to Him more quickly – one will become more perfect in a safer way. At least this is the general rule, the general arc, the general invitation.

As for the ranks of the clergy, Thomas thinks this requires more consideration, but it chiefly comes down to a question of virtue. “Is this man able to give a credible and inspiring witness to the Gospel by his way of life, and is he competent to rule over the spiritual affairs which are to be entrusted to him prudently?” If the answer is “yes,” then if he possesses a sufficiently good name among men, and he can study sufficiently to acquire what he needs to know to do what will be put in his charge, then why should he be turned away?

Vermeersch (one of the major moral theologians at the turn of the last century) adds a few conditions, in his explanation of ecclesiastical (“priestly”) vocation in the Catholic Encyclopedia. First, that there be no evident problem which the candidate has in relation to the diocese or province – i.e., that his race will cause the people to distrust him, or that his personality, opinions, and background will cause great distress to the local clergy, or some such thing. Second, that the candidate is honestly presenting himself from a firm resolve to serve the Church as an ecclesiastic for the good of souls, rather than for some worldly or selfish motive. It seems Thomas takes this for granted, as it is somehow contained in the quality of “virtue” or “goodness” which he insists upon. Yet Thomas is minimally descriptive – he quotes a lofty description of the character requisite given by Jerome and also Dionysius, and he then explains that this is why it is a mortal sin to be ordained when conscious of mortal sin, which means that one must therefore be holy to be rightly ordained – free of the shackles of any vice. Presumably, he thinks that a good deal of virtue is nonetheless needed for a viable candidate, but he does not explain exactly what that is except in somewhat negative terms.

For them, that’s it. That’s all that is required, other than the actual fact of such a vocation being confirmed in reality by ordination. Obviously, if one is never able to achieve ordination in a moral way, God did not actually want it.

You will notice that neither Thomas, nor Vermeersch (just read the article!), are particularly interested in “having certain feelings about being called,” either on the part of the candidate or the superior/evaluator. They do not really seem to believe in that, or even really in such a thing as “discernment” in the way we now speak of it and hear of it – endlessly hear of it, in every vocations film, book, talk, retreat, and program, and in every seminary in the modern West. It is used so much that it means everything and nothing. The word “discernment” does not appear at all in the Catholic Encyclopedia article. A greater study is necessary to reveal just how the idea of “discernment” entered into such popular usage in the Church – it is a recent phenomenon, with distant roots in the writings of St. Ignatius of Loyola, but it is perhaps far from his own understanding.

Vermeersch pulls no punches. He writes, “A reaction set in against this abuse, and young men were expected, instead of following the choice of their parents, a choice often dictated by purely human considerations, to wait for a special call from God before entering the seminary or the cloister. At the same time, a semi-Quietism in France led people to believe that a man ought to defer his action until he was conscious of a special Divine impulse, a sort of Divine message revealing to him what he ought to do. If a person, in order to practice virtue, was bound to make an inward examination of himself at every moment, how much more necessary to listen for the voice of God before entering upon the sublime path of the priesthood or monastic life? God was supposed to speak by an attraction, which it was dangerous to anticipate: and thus arose the famous theory which identified vocation with Divine attraction; without attraction there was no vocation; with attraction, there was a vocation which was, so to speak, obligatory, as there was so much danger in disobedience. Though theoretically free, the choice of a state was practically necessary: “Those who are not called”, says Scavini (Theol. moral., 14th ed., I, i, n. 473), “cannot enter the religious state: those who are called must enter it; or what would be the use of the call?” Other writers, such as Gury (II, n. 148-50), after having stated that it is a grave fault to enter the religious state when conscious of not having been called, correct themselves in a remarkable manner by adding, “unless they have a firm resolution to fulfill the duties of their state”.”

Gury’s treatment is bizarre… He also introduced, in the same book, the modern and almost completely dominant resolution (and a false resolution, in my opinion) of the “solam voluptatam” debate about marriage which emanated from Innocent XI’s condemnations… It is a kind of weird overextension of the power of the human will to make things good and right, in both cases. Anyway, I digress; I hope to treat the latter point in an upcoming book on marriage.

The fact is that we have strayed quite far from the robust discussion and objectively grounded understanding of priestly vocations from 100 or so years ago. Men today are left with little to go on other than a vague instruction to “figure it out” – some combination of prayer and experience and emotions… And loads of interviews, psychological evaluations, and so on. “Come and see,” “try it out,” and so on. Certainly, many such men who come and see, and try it out, really feel very strongly called to the priesthood, they enter seminary, all is well, and then one day their emotions change because it is a cold and dreary February, they are stressed from schoolwork, there is some trouble in their family, and that pretty girl from the parish back home wrote them a nice text with a heart emoji about how wonderfully spiritual their example is and that they can’t wait to talk to them this summer over coffee. If they’ve not been given an objective and emotionally minimalist framework for understanding what vocation is, and what it is not, how will such men endure? They will likely not. They will “discern out,” as we hear it said. Nonsense. They either never should have been there in the first place, or they should have persevered, despite their feelings, all else being equal.

Maybe it is time we move away from the Scylla of pickiness and human emotion, and yet without going over to the Charybdis of “warm-body syndrome,” where everyone who shows up and perseveres gets ordained – an even worse ill, where the Devil swallows up whole swaths of men, but which is not really a wide-spread problem in the West, thank God. (It is in other places.)

The Devil will get fewer men through pickiness and emotional trustfulness, through an arbitrary and even capricious process of self-evaluation and exterior evaluation wherein a bishop or superior does, in fact, infallibly determine that they do not have a call to enter their diocese or community; even despite a poor process of evaluation, God does not want what is impossible. And yet processes of this kind can leave men seriously jaded, sometimes (even frequently) pushing them into a downward spiral of depression and anger, sometimes even to heresy, apostasy, and atheism. One can say, “See? I told you so. They were bad.” And sometimes that is true. St. Ambrose was able to turn away two men from Holy Orders prudently, just based on how they walked – and they each went off to various kinds of perversity which he had foreseen, the proud, slow walker to heresy and schism, and the quick, feminine walker to all kinds of odd sexual vice, or something similar, if my memory serves. (I will need to find the text of this account later.)

But sometimes a bad experience of the Church makes a good man into a bad one. It’s not clear to me that this is appreciated so well by those with the charge to intake men for formation. Bad evaluations, bad formation, bad dismissals… all in the face of someone’s generosity and vulnerability. It takes real spiritual grit to keep on moving.

But keep on moving such men must.

In the end, perhaps too many bishops and superiors don’t really appreciate that the fact of a man knocking on their door is itself a very good sign already that he has a vocation. So what if he wasn’t what you expected, or doesn’t fit into your idea of what sacerdotal ministry is? Does he meet the objective criteria, or not? Is he going to be a walking scandal in the diocese or province, or not? There is always the risk of a bad outcome – but bishops and superiors are not held to an impossible standard. All that is required is some decent prudence, in addition to trusting that the same God Who presumably moved such a man to present himself has some sensible plan to make good come out of it, even if it isn’t the good the bishop or superior had been expecting or seeking.

Surely, we cannot go back to the days where a man could knock on the door of Santa Sabina and be clothed in the habit of St. Dominic a few hours later. Much less should one rashly administer Holy Orders to anyone who petitions. But it is time that we pick up this discussion again seriously, in the midst of such immense bewailing of a supposed “lack of priestly vocations.” Is that really what is happening, or is it a lack of sound evaluative processes, possibly undergirded by a lack of sound theology about entrance into different states of life?

To my readers thinking about possible dissertation topics -see above. This is a good one. Go check out the “sources” section of the Catholic Encyclopedia article. It is really interesting in its own right.

St. John Vianney, pray for us. St. Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us.