The Incredible Shrinking Papacy

News out of Poland this week on the front of Traditonis Custodes.  The Polish Bishops had their visit to Rome, and during this time in Rome they had discussions regarding the motu proprio, and the in their view overly harsh restrictions the Pope wanted the Bishops to enact.  In their own words, they said (English translation courtesy of Christine Watkins):

The Tridentine liturgy was discussed in the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. The bishops asked questions, especially related to parish churches, in which the liturgy could possibly be continued, as well as extending the possibility of celebrating it, in accordance with the motu proprio “Traditionis custodes”, should such a need arise in Poland in the future. On the one hand, the congregation admitted that the matter was resolved too harshly and that instead of serving unity, in individual cases, it could lead to someone leaving the Church because his needs were not met. On the other hand, the will to interpret the motu proprio broadly was expressed – more in spirit than in the letter of the issued law.

“The general rule is that priests who under Benedict XVI had permits to celebrate the Tridentine liturgy should have them. On the other hand, new, young priests who would like to celebrate this liturgy must apply to the Holy See with a written request for permission to be biritual [celebrating the liturgy in two rites – KAI]. The Holy See wants this matter under control. He does not say ‘no’ to the Tridentine liturgy as such, but is cautious due to the fact that in some countries of the world it is associated with an anti-Vatican II ideology that rejects the Second Vatican Council, ‘said Cardinal Nycz.

I think it is beyond dispute that even Rome now realizes that Traditionis Custodes was carried out in a haphazard way that did a lot more damage than good.  Hence the walkback here to the Polish Bishops.  The second part is that they seem to realize that if the Bishops followed the law as it was promulgated, trying to obey the Holy Father faithfully, it would have the end result of driving souls from the Church and plunging them into schism, something those Bishops would then have to answer to God for.

Yet the "spirit" of the letter is nebulous as well.  There was nothing about being biritual in the original document, nor in the accompanying letter justifying it.  The Pope was clear:  a Church that continued to celebrate the Latin Mass was turning its back on the Second Vatican Council, so this was the first step.  Even the idea of a "biritual" priest who only celebrates in the Roman Rite makes zero canonical sense, to say nothing of doctrinal sense, as it would concede that the Novus Ordo and the Latin Mass are two separate liturgical rites, and the current desire by the Pope to destroy the Latin Mass (I'm sorry, "restrict") would run afoul of the very Second Vatican Council he claims to be implementing.  (The whole lawful rites and equal dignity thing.)

Yet I think we should look at this in terms of an overall trend.  Back in 2018, the Pope gave a series of speeches in which he compared his critics (and those he disagreed with on the more traditional end) as "Pelagians".  He continued to make the assertion, so much so that the CDF was required to send a letter to the world's bishops in which they were instructed not to take the Pope at his word:  his critics were actually not Pelagians.

Clearly, the comparison with the Pelagian and Gnostic heresies intends only to recall general common features, without entering into judgments on the exact nature of the ancient errors. In fact, there is a great difference between modern, secularized society and the social context of early Christianity, in which these two heresies were born.

You can read the texts Placuit Deo cites the Pope making:  it is clear he meant exactly what he said.  The CDF was just performing clean-up later.  From a dogmatic standpoint, this isn't really a problem for Catholics.  Popes are infallible:  they can still say stupid things.

Another example:  There was an extremely delicate issue regarding who would become a Bishop in a diocese in Nigeria.  Pope Benedict made a decision to appoint a Bishop that had zero legitimacy in the eyes of the local public, and the protests were so widespread he never took his ministry.  Pope Francis wrote a sweeping condemnation to the priests, demanding they submit to his will, accept their Bishop, or face suspension from ministry.  The Nigerian diocese held it's ground.  That Bishop was not assuming his seat. The suspensions never came, and in two months, the Pope dropped his insistence on the Bishop assuming his chair, as the Bishop "resigned."  In the more famous instance in Chile, the Pope launched a public attack on survivors of abuse, referring to them as liars who had committed a mortal sin in slandering the Bishop he chose for them, and not accepting him as their Bishop.  Within a month of those remarks..... he dismissed the Bishop and admitted that those victims were correct all along, and that he had actually slandered the victims.

What we see is a pattern of a Pope who tries to flex his muscles, and every time he tries, he makes the situation worse, only to be followed by a retreat:  first a small one, and over time a larger one.  In each case, the Pope's sweeping attempt at authority was ignored at best, and responded with outright hostility in other cases.  We also see that the Pope's words cannot be viewed as a reliable guide, whether it be in implementing Church law, Church governance, or the seemingly easy task of not going into a tirade on victims of abuse.

We are a long way from the days of John Paul II, much less a Pius XII, where the Pope was perceived as "God on Earth", and his judgements carried serious force, especially in internal Church affairs.  Instead, it is the era of the incredible shrinking papacy.  As someone who thinks on average that a less powerful papacy is a good thing, one should still have serious reservations about how we adopt a more realistic view of the papacy.

My proposed solution:  Stop viewing the primary end of governing the Church as spiting those people you don't like.  People will be more receptive of your laws and guidance, and your underlings won't need a second full time job of cleaning up your mess.

A Traditionalism for the People: Reading the Room

When you ask people what traditionalists advocate, you will first hear about the Latin Mass.  You may hear that they "oppose Vatican II."  (Whatever that means.)  Yet a third thing you might hear is that traditionalists advocate a Church that has little role for the laity.  We believe in a top down Church where the laity mostly exist to pay, pray, and obey.

In fairness, sometimes you hear about this among trads as well.  There seems to be a deep mistrust of lay leadership in the Church, with an inherent belief that "lay-involved" means "Liberal."  Like its political equivalent in the French Revolution, you had "the people" on one side, and "the authority" on the other.  This has mostly replicated itself in the Church.  When the Pope complains about clericalism, what he really is complaining about is "conservatives and trads are doing things I don't like."  If you don't think 100% the way Pope Francis does, you are a clericalist.  In our age of hyper polarization, some wear this as a badge of honor and lean into the caricature.

My problem is that doesn't really describe reality.  Traditionalism is a movement dominated by the laity, operates on a model far more decentralized than anything in the Church.  Your average Latin Mass community has a laity far more involved in governing the community than your average parish that celebrates the Novus Ordo, to say nothing of the parish dominated by a small graying clique promoting "Pope Francis study groups".

You will very rarely see a Latin Mass community willed into being because a priest just wants to start celebrating it.  It takes a lot of work learning how to say the Latin Mass on your own account, much less to find the servers willing to help, the musical talent for a lot of the traditional pieces of music, just to satisfy the priests own ego.  If a priest just moves to a new parish and decides to randomly announce that they will start celebrating the Latin Mass, the truth is that Mass will likely end within a few months.

Instead, what you often have is a group of lay faithful who want that Mass.  They meet with priests looking for a friendly locality.  They meet with their own pastors.  They find lay organizations to help them train servers.  They use social media to promote their Masses.  They often coordinate bringing in special priests for certain feast days.    Most of your day to day governance of a Latin Mass happens not by the priest, but by a married couple, and often by the female side of that equation.  (Every Latin Mass has a matriarch who makes it work.)  Since it is mostly organized from the bottom, there's very little episcopal oversight.  (Which can be a bad thing!)  The most successful communities happen when Bishops and pastors recognize and work within those existing communities, rather than trying to cultivate their own.

Almost every trad understands this is the way things are.  Yet there always seems to be a reluctance in leaning into that, lest we come across as wanting a "democratic" Church.  Yet this is a misunderstanding.  The Catholic Church's core elements come not from the laity, or even the hierarchy.  They come from Jesus Christ.  As such, her doctrine cannot change.  Yet the laity have a role in ensuring that the Church on earth remains ever faithful to her identity.  The Churches doctrines, absent her identity, are boring words on a piece of worthless paper.    It is here traditionalism thrives, in being a movement, primarily of the lay faithful, ensuring that the Church remains true to her identity, even if prominent individual leaders fall short.

In that light, we are less a movement of rebuilding a past, and more a movement that says we will have a say in what the future of the Church looks like, and that there is a differing alternative to the vision of the Church dominated by an increasingly out of touch and old hierarchy, and a pastoral bureaucracy that has long lost its touch with what the parish community actually wants.  We aren't preaching a revolution, but rather a rebalancing of the scales in the Church.

To continue thriving, we need to read the room and lean into what we actually are.