Concerning Christian Books

The Vatican Problem (Reflection)

Before my reawakening into the Catholic faith - or rather, as part of its beginning - I found myself, July 2016, standing amongst a massive crowd of worshippers in a rainy park somewhere in Krakow, Poland. Somewhat lost within myself, reeling from a range of new, wonderful but challenging experiences, I was about halfway through a major pilgrimage that had taken me from my home in Sydney to Jordan and Israel, then finally to Poland to attend World Youth Day. Before that major event, the week leading up to it was a great but intimidating city-wide festival of Catholic celebration by young people from all over the world, congregating in the home country of Pope John Paul II in anticipation of the arrival of Pope Francis, the current and, to many, controversial leader of the Catholic Church. 

It sounds cliched, but this journey I had embarked on changed my life in so many ways. I truly believe God called me to attend, and had actively helped sustain me against all the dreadful impulses I felt in the prior months to retreat from the whole thing that was so vastly out of my comfort zone and experience. I am still amazed but ever grateful I actually went through with it. If I hadn't, I would not have come to know God like I did; I would have remained a faithful but only nominally practicing Catholic; and I would never have met the most amazing and beautiful girl in the world and became forever committed to her in marriage. 

World Youth Day holds an immensely special place in my heart - not just the one I went to, but the whole, ongoing thing. It is so important that it continues. People like me - Catholics who went through the secular school system feeling like outsiders in a group of friends that had little to no religious faith and felt like the world's Christians were rapidly disappearing - can benefit so much by witnessing the true love and energy, the joy and the power, of Christ's followers in this world. I have never seen so much unapologetic love, so much energetic faith, such a strong community of Christians and would have remained under the illusion that most people no longer believed in or cared about God. 

Of course, it would be just as beneficial to any Catholic from any background, but I speak from my own experience. And so the reason I preface this chapter with a biographical account is that I want to stress I am in no way anti-papal. I respect the Pope - our current one, and the whole papal office through history. Nevertheless, I do sometimes find the reverence shown this figure a little unsettling at times. I am not one for worship of any kind if it is directed anywhere but towards God. In this increasingly secular and relativistic age, the worship of wealth, celebrity and other human figures has filled the reverential void in the public square. And as much as I prefer Pope Francis and his sometimes Left-leaning politics to any vapid Hollywood idol, I do still find that he is elevated higher than seems right by many people. 

Back in Poland, watching giant TV screens of the Pope's plane touching down, then later seeing his bullet-proof "Popemobile" idling through the hysterical crowd of Catholic youth, the noise would well have surpassed that made when Christ humbly entered Jerusalem by donkey. I would not call doubt upon the sincerity of the event at all - the love for God was incredibly palpable - but I did sometimes grapple with the notion we were accidentally celebrating the Pope's temporal and temporary presence in the city of Krakow, rather than God's constant presence in all aspects our lives.            

I know perfectly well how the Protestants see Catholics are polytheistic - if not outright polytheists. Likewise, I think I have a firm enough understanding of where Muslims see Christians and especially Catholics of being idol-worshippers. But speaking for myself, I think other Christians really do misunderstand how we actually respond to and perceive our Lady. Muslims are justified in thinking all Christians are idolaters because to them Jesus was merely a prophet. It makes perfect sense for them to think we are making a grave mistake and have been led stray from "worshipping Allah alone". But they are wrong. 

I will not talk about the Marian devotion here. That is a whole other topic I will touch on later in this book. But as for the Pope? The official position, as I understand it, is that no one who has ever had the papal seat, not even Saint Peter himself, is higher than any other human being. Peter was a loving servant and an invaluable evangelist - God truly bless him - but he was also terrible flawed. It was Peter, let's not forget, who denied Christ three times according to the Bible. It was Peter who struggled to the point of raising arms when Jesus revealed the fate of His Passion. "Get behind me, Satan," Jesus reprimanded. This was Peter - as good a man as they come, short of Jesus, but still far from perfect. 

Also, we must not forget that the Pope too is merely human. He too is a sinner. He needs the sanctification of Christ's blood in order to enter the gates of Heaven. I will also point out that far from all the popes in history have been perfect. Many of them oversaw terrible things inflicted by the Catholic Church on the world. Even esteemed popes such as Innocent III are believed to have faced the purifying flames of Purgatory before they could enter God's heavenly kingdom (see Purgatory by F.X. Schouppe); Pope Innocent III is said to have been in such a state that he appeared to Saint Lutgardis and begged for his prayers to ease his expiation.

The point isn't to be pessimistic but to remember that nobody is perfect, and though we are expected to strive for perfection, God knows we are perpetually stained by darkness except for the blessed blood of Christ. The Pope is no different, I think. Therefore any undue reverence - which surpasses mere excitement at his presence and extends to the historic notion of papal infallibility (that whatever he says is right, because he is an unshakable vessel for God) - does border on a kind of idolatry. Remember how harshly Moses was punished in Numbers when he falsely (and to me, accidentally) took credit for God's miracle of drawing water from the rock? It would be a great detriment to the rock upon which Christ anointed Peter if the Church forgot that we must truly worship no one but God.

Finally, we have the unfortunate optics afforded by the Vatican and its noxious grandiloquence. Again, I personally would much rather see the institution of the Catholic Church be afforded  the power of clout in this modern world than any secular one. And as I do trust the Vatican for the most part, I feel reassured that the central hub of the global Catholic Church has more than enough wealth to sustain itself into the future. But its power does grant endless fodder to anti-Catholic conspiracy theories, and strikes a jarring contrast to the Biblical notion of Christian humility and impoverishment. My best justification for this is that it is necessary for the Vatican to be as powerful as it is, otherwise it would have much less of a voice in today's modern world. The fact is, as much as the Catholic Church seems to be on the wrong end of the cultural "in" list, the Pope still has the privilege of being heard and, more often than not, stirring controversy among those who oppose his message.     

There has, for centuries, been an anti-Catholic streak throughout the world - among atheists, other religions and even among other Christians. This is a sad reality for any Catholic, and the hypocrisy of those who attack it is undeniable. The orchestrated stereotype of pedophile priests and the Church's systemic obfuscation of actual incidents is just as unfair as it is unfortunately grounded upon certain truths. Pedophilia and other sexual abuses are an issue in the Church. Given the suppressive vowels of celibacy priests and other religious take, thrown against the progressive fashions and sexualized attitude even many churchgoers now adopt, you could say it's inevitable that bad things sometimes happen. But human (and, more specifically, male) sexuality is a worldwide issue that develops into sinful acts outside of the church just as much. It seems to me that Hollywood and schools, for instance, are not held all that accountable for the misdeeds that happen under their jurisdiction, but the Catholic Church, being much less popular, is gleefully characterized as an institution for sexual perverts with almost no critical awareness of the deeper issue that transcends the Church. It has become common fodder for both keyboard warriors and self-righteous celebrities degrade the Church whilst overlooking the very same violations elsewhere in their society. 

This is why, despite my overall uneasiness with too much reverence being afforded the Pope, I do like our current one. He is just a human, obviously very intelligent and pious but no less immune to the errors of humanity. But he is the right pope for our time. Even though many fellow conservatives I follow can outright despise him for being lenient towards Islam and immigration policy, among other things, the Church stands much to lose in a battle it may already be losing if it takes a hard-line approach without compassion and humility.