"Just Call Me Excellency!"

[Note:  This is the first post in the blog Call Me Excellency, originally published September 2, 2011.  To continue reading the posts in order, from beginning to end (first to last), consult the post archive on the right-hand side of the page, and begin with the second post, published on September 9, 2011.]

              

H

is Excellency, Urbane Angelus, has graciously consented to accompany us on this blog as we address multiple issues in the religious world today. His Excellency is the Titular Archbishop of Atoll #7 in the Pacific Ocean. He will help by way of commentary and illustration of what it is like to inhabit an elevated position in the Roman Catholic hierarchy and on hierarchical interpretations of moral and doctrinal issues.

 
































We begin with some of the problems for which we will seek causes. Having found the causes, the solutions will appear:

1.  A 2008 study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Policy found that adult Catholics in the United States who have exited the Catholic faith number 22.8 million. The study found that 68% of those raised as Catholics have stayed in the Church.

We ask: what could cause such an exodus?

2.  Over the past decade it was suggested at the United Nations that there should be one world religion. The Roman Catholic response by Cardinal Arinze amounted to “That’s fine, as long as the one is Roman Catholic.” Similar responses came from other world religions.

Twenty years ago, theologian Hans Kung wrote in his work “Global Responsibility” that the enmity between religions reaches into the political sphere and prevents people from coming together. “There will be no peace,” he said, “until there is peace between religions.” He proposed that the way to achieve that peace would be for those religions to come together and reach an agreement on a common or shared ethic.

We ask: why don’t they come together? Doesn’t the basis of a common ethic already exist in the shared belief in the golden rule: love your neighbor as you love yourself?

We ask: where are the bishops in the peace effort?

3.  In this century the time bomb of clergy sexual abuse exploded with nuclear force. Subsequent investigations have revealed the worldwide extent of the abuse. They also revealed the behavior of bishops in their handling of priest abusers and the scandal. Bishops routinely stonewalled victims and the victims’ parents. They used attorneys to play hardball with victims. They used the common lie that “this was the first complaint ever received against Father Pedophile.” They transferred pedophile priests from parish to parish, diocese to diocese, where other children awaited the horror to come.

We soon heard a litany of excuses from the bishops as they pointed the hierarchical finger: they said gays were responsible so they mounted a campaign against gays saying they should not be ordained; they said that children can be very seductive tempters and temptresses. It was the children’s fault. The abusers were the real victims; they implied that the victims want the money that would otherwise go to the poor, as if it’s okay to work an injustice on one group as long as charity prevails for another group.

We ask: What explains this behavior of the bishops? And why did the recent John Jay College of Criminal Justice study (commissioned by the bishops) fail to detail the bishops’ own behavior in the scandal?

4.  A number of issues have emerged that illustrate a growing dissidence between the Catholic laity and the hierarchy: the role of the laity, sexual morality, the rights and place of women, married and women priests, contraception, and divorce – to name only the more apparent.

We will begin to tackle all of the above in the next and subsequent issues. We believe that the ultimate answer lies with the clerical culture at the episcopal level, and we will begin with a history of that culture’s development. We plan to publish weekly – given the availability of Archbishop Angelus. Thanks for visiting. We hope you will follow us as we progress. 


See also:  
 
Sex, Priests and Secret Codes by Doyle, Sipe and Hall




   




The Purple Culture by Stephen Boehrer








 
Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic by Hans Kung

"Mirror, Mirror": Narcissism and the Church Hierarchy

he Roman poet Ovid wrote of the tragic tale of Narcissus, son of the river god, Cephissus, and the nymph, Leiriope. Narcissus, handsome beyond imagination, rejected all who loved him. The nymph, Echo, lacking the ability to speak directly, was one of his rejects. Another reject, a young man, prayed that Narcissus would love only himself, Narcissus, forever. A goddess answered the prayer and arranged that Narcissus would stop at a spring to drink. Looking at his reflection in the water, he fell hopelessly in love with his own image. He was unable to free himself from his reflection in the water and gradually starved to death.
 

Narcissists have a fantasy life loaded with self-images that possess the heights of beauty, wisdom, love, power, success, etc. They believe themselves so special that only persons of equal grandeur can understand them.

        

Narcissists require huge amounts of admiration while, paradoxically, their self-esteem is very low. They need praise from others to give themselves a self. And they are very deft at extracting expressions of admiration from others. They feel entitled to special considerations and can be unreasonable in their demands for them. This sense of entitlement, like their grandiosity, does not depend on any external achievements on their part.

        

There is a great deal of envy in the narcissist. They become green with envy at the success of others and the applause given them. They feel applause belongs to them. They are lacking in empathy and show disdain for others.

        

We all begin life as narcissists. Most of us grow out of it in the daily give-and-take of family and school life. It is only lately that psychotherapists have realized that narcissism can be re-acquired. They give examples of various celebrities, doctors and the like. The experts refer to this circumstance as “acquired situational narcissism.”

        

Large groups of people can also acquire narcissism. Experts give the example of an elite military force. Members are indoctrinated as being special. They receive praise for their specialness. They wear the insignia of their specialness. They look upon themselves as warriors without peer, and dismiss the regular foot soldiers and the enemy as inferior. They acquire a sense of invulnerability. When shown to be vulnerable by those they dismiss as inferior, they often react with violence on the unprotected.

One can easily see the parallel between the military culture and that of the bishops.  In their cultural mindset theirs is the only intellectual capacity, theirs is the only moral authority, and protection of their aristocratic status is always a first consideration in their dictates.  They are ever ready to exclude and excommunicate to protect their voice and their status.  We hear them refer to their assembly as “the most exclusive club in the world.”

Aristocratic Trappings Alive and Well in the Church

I

n this issue we respond to the question:  Does the hierarchy today really retain the trappings of the aristocracy of old?  The answer of course is yes.  Still we should reassure ourselves that this is true.

Historians have determined that a papal court existed at least from the seventh century. It has possessed its full grandeur since the Renaissance in the fourteenth century. Pope Paul VI, in his Motu Proprio, Pontificalis Domus (1968),  reorganized the court. No longer called the papal court, the same entity is now subsumed under the titles Papal Household and Papal Chapel.

Prior to the issuance of the Motu Proprio, pontiffs regularly granted titles such as duke, marquis, count, and duchess to select lay people. An American woman received the title, duchess, from Pope Pius XII through the mediation of Cardinal Spellman. Today those former titles are no longer bestowed, though some individuals retain those previously awarded. Other titles such as Stewards of St. Peter and Gentlemen of His Holiness are now in use. Basically it is more a matter of titles than of substance.

Cardinals today still rank just below crown princes in the aristocratic alignment. They are thus given the appellation Your Eminence. Bishops, Their Excellencies, remain princes of the Church. Monsignor translates as My Lord.

Besides Gentlemen of His Holiness, the highest honor given a layman, there are a slew of papal knights: The Supreme Order of Christ, The Order of the Golden Spur, The Order of Pope Pius IX, The Order of St. Gregory the Great, The Equestrian Order of Pope St. Sylvester, etc. Knight Orders have corresponding “Dame” awards for women. Precedence governs all these awards as is evidenced in the order found in ceremonial processions.

Aristocratic heraldry is alive and flourishing in the Church. Heraldry is described as “a celebration, based on ancient symbols, of the sense people have of themselves, personally and in groups.” One does not need to speculate on just who those persons and groups are.

Precedence, the pecking order, within the hierarchy is visibly displayed on their coats of arms. The color and number of tassels (fiocchi) on each coat of arms immediately tells the knowledgeable viewer what is the title and rank of the bearer.

In a prior issue of this blog, we touched on how the trappings of the aristocracy fill the liturgies of the Church.

Clearly, the purple culture is alive and thriving in the episcopacy.

Note: For any reader interested in observing the full extent of aristocratic trappings in the Church, we recommend leafing through The Church Visible – The Ceremonial Life andProtocol of the Roman Catholic Church by James-Charles Noonan Jr, 1996, Penguin Books.

The Way We Were: The Lost Partnership Between the Laity and Church Leaders

W

e begin with a bit of history.  In the early days of Christianity there existed a genuine partnership between what we now call the laity and the Church leaders. The Church was a combination of the two groups. And the partnership extended to all Church matters. The laity had equal voices in matters of administration, doctrine, discipline and all expressions of piety. The following two examples, one regarding discipline and the other doctrine, illustrate this historical fact: 

1.  In Chapter 15 of the Acts of the Apostles we are told that some Jewish Christians came to Antioch and began telling the Gentile Christians they were required to observe all the prescriptions of the Torah, including the practice of circumcision and the food restrictions. The Gentile Christians reacted strongly, asking in effect, what do circumcision and those other laws have to do with what Jesus taught?   

The Church--those Gentile Christians--sent Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem (the Vatican of that time) with their complaint and their wisdom, and their voice prevailed. It is worth noting here that Church Leaders in these early centuries worked full time jobs to support themselves.  

2.  The Council of Nicaea, 325 A.D., condemned a heresy, Arianism, which stated that Jesus was not quite God. He was the highest of all creatures but still a creature. 

Arianism, however, did not die with the condemnation. The Emperor, Constantius II, favored it and exiled Pope Liberius for his refusal to support it. Eventually, Liberius, in exile, gave in to the Emperor and was returned to Rome. 

In Rome, the Christians, who now considered Liberius to be a traitor, would have nothing to do with him and began turning to an anti-pope, Felix. “The people would not even go to the public baths lest they should bathe with the party of Liberius.” (“Arians of the Fourth Century” by Cardinal John Henry Newman). The Pope got the message and changed back to his original opposition to Arianism. Again from Cardinal Newman: “The Catholic people, in the length and breadth of Christendom, were the obstinate champions of Catholic truth, and the bishops were not.”

# # #

Today we can’t imagine sending a bishop anywhere, much less with the mission of carrying the wisdom of the people to the Vatican. Nor can we imagine having a voice in the discipline of the Church. Nor does the laity have a voice in doctrinal matters today. Does anyone recall an instance where the bishops asked for an opinion on "infallible" definitions, or on the content of encyclicals? What happened to that partnership between laity and Church Leaders so pronounced in the early centuries?

We will continue our search for the answers in next week’s blog issue. When and how did Christianity lose its original egalitarian character? And what have been the consequences of that change?

See also:

 
 The Arians of the Fourth Century, by 
 John Henry Newman

 A History of Christianity, by Paul

 Johnson. 

"Just Call Me Excellency!"

              

H

is Excellency, Urbane Angelus, has graciously consented to accompany us on this blog as we address multiple issues in the religious world today. His Excellency is the Titular Archbishop of Atoll #7 in the Pacific Ocean. He will help by way of commentary and illustration of what it is like to inhabit an elevated position in the Roman Catholic hierarchy and on hierarchical interpretations of moral and doctrinal issues.

 






























We begin with some of the problems for which we will seek causes. Having found the causes, the solutions will appear:

1.  A 2008 study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Policy found that adult Catholics in the United States who have exited the Catholic faith number 22.8 million. The study found that 68% of those raised as Catholics have stayed in the Church.

We ask: what could cause such an exodus?

2.  Over the past decade it was suggested at the United Nations that there should be one world religion. The Roman Catholic response by Cardinal Arinze amounted to “That’s fine, as long as the one is Roman Catholic.” Similar responses came from other world religions.

Twenty years ago, theologian Hans Kung wrote in his work “Global Responsibility” that the enmity between religions reaches into the political sphere and prevents people from coming together. “There will be no peace,” he said, “until there is peace between religions.” He proposed that the way to achieve that peace would be for those religions to come together and reach an agreement on a common or shared ethic.

We ask: why don’t they come together? Doesn’t the basis of a common ethic already exist in the shared belief in the golden rule: love your neighbor as you love yourself?

We ask: where are the bishops in the peace effort?

3.  In this century the time bomb of clergy sexual abuse exploded with nuclear force. Subsequent investigations have revealed the worldwide extent of the abuse. They also revealed the behavior of bishops in their handling of priest abusers and the scandal. Bishops routinely stonewalled victims and the victims’ parents. They used attorneys to play hardball with victims. They used the common lie that “this was the first complaint ever received against Father Pedophile.” They transferred pedophile priests from parish to parish, diocese to diocese, where other children awaited the horror to come.

We soon heard a litany of excuses from the bishops as they pointed the hierarchical finger: they said gays were responsible so they mounted a campaign against gays saying they should not be ordained; they said that children can be very seductive tempters and temptresses. It was the children’s fault. The abusers were the real victims; they implied that the victims want the money that would otherwise go to the poor, as if it’s okay to work an injustice on one group as long as charity prevails for another group.

We ask: What explains this behavior of the bishops? And why did the recent John Jay College of Criminal Justice study (commissioned by the bishops) fail to detail the bishops’ own behavior in the scandal?

4.  A number of issues have emerged that illustrate a growing dissidence between the Catholic laity and the hierarchy: the role of the laity, sexual morality, the rights and place of women, married and women priests, contraception, and divorce – to name only the more apparent.

We will begin to tackle all of the above in the next and subsequent issues. We believe that the ultimate answer lies with the clerical culture at the episcopal level, and we will begin with a history of that culture’s development. We plan to publish weekly – given the availability of Archbishop Angelus. Thanks for visiting. We hope you will follow us as we progress. 


See also:  
 
Sex, Priests and Secret Codes by Doyle, Sipe and Hall




   




The Purple Culture by Stephen Boehrer









 
Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic by Hans Kung