"Infallibility" and All-Too-Human Clerical Leadership

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n a moment seemingly graced with both arrogance and a peoples’ cry for salvation security, Pope Pius IX declared himself and all popes to be infallible in matters of faith and morals. The declaration flaunted centuries of inquisition-caused murder, centuries of witch burning, centuries of wars and crusades, and centuries of papal self-indulgence. As we noted before, the declaration also established a new form of monarchy for the Pope just as the Papal States were being wrested from his control.

But, the declaration did even more than that. It also put a padlock on the episcopal cultural box. As time passed, the sense of infallibility crept beyond its original, somewhat limited, intent. It extended its tentacles far beyond relevance. It made itself felt at every level of the Church from the papal halls to the smallest remote parish. It eventually reached into every possible concern of the clerical estate. By intimation, bishops appropriated it in their most inane and mundane utterances, and priests too often assumed its mantle on their own shoulders, both in their speech and in their demands for deference and privilege.

We find the shadow of infallibility alive and well in the purple culture today. It works on both pope and bishops to incapacitate their ability to admit mistakes and errors. Teachings that were uttered by the “Fathers” of the Church in the early Christian centuries were often based on a limited understanding of the universe, a limited understanding of Sacred Scripture, a limited understanding of human biology, and a limited understanding of human psychology. Pope John Paul II blamed theologians for the condemnation of Galileo–four hundred years after the event and after the world knew that the earth orbits the sun, not the other way around.

We find shades of infallibility in their inability to show genuine remorse to victims of clerical sexual abuse, and in their ongoing attempts to prevent justice being done for the victims. They point fingers at irrelevant causes. Perhaps above all, we find it in their inability to give hearing and credence to the laity’s wisdom in matters of faith and morals. We find it in their removed and incestuous thinking that they alone have the authority to dictate values in moral matters, and that authority somehow equates with competence. 

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"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.”

The Clerical Aristocracy: An Addictive Cultural Box

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e have seen how and when bishops took for themselves the style and purple culture of the aristocracy, and how that culture is now totally integrated within the episcopacy. In the next few issues we want to describe relevant components of that culture as it exists today, and as it impacts on the matters mentioned in the first issue of this blog, matters important to the laity and to their sense of participation.

First of all, any culture has many addictive attributes. We float in our culture with only rare consciousness of it. It inhabits us and we act or don’t act out of it without awareness of our non-reflection on it. We assume, again non-reflectively, that the culture that supports us is the best culture in the world. An analogy of culture is easily seen in a common science lesson: If you throw a frog into boiling water, it will immediately jump out and save itself. If, however, you put that frog into water at room temperature and then bring the water to boil, the frog won’t realize what is happening and will perish. The latter example perfectly describes culture.

Experts tell us that addictions can be either substance addictions (drugs, alcohol, etc.) or process addictions (gambling, sex, work, religion, etc.). Addictions seize control over one’s life and the addicted person needs outside help to regain their life.

Cultural anthropologists and psychotherapists agree that organizations can be addictive and that the addiction extends to the particular culture of the organization. The episcopacy is easily compared to a corporate entity, and just like that of any corporate entity, the culture of the episcopacy is addictive.

Within the organization the message goes out that the organization (episcopal culture) comes first. The priority given the episcopal culture leads to an attempt to control everything and everyone in the organization. An insider of the culture does not question the culture and the policies that support it. The sense of interior perfection also prevents insiders from accepting wisdom from the outside. We will see the cultural consequences of denigrating and ignoring intelligence from the laity as we progress through each of the components of the bishops’ culture.

The bishops’ unique form of denial, the common defense mechanism used by addicts to protect their addiction, is best found in their use of Scripture. They project their culture as coming directly from Jesus, a fantasy drawn and expanded beyond any rational recognition, to “prove” that He founded a monarchical church: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” (Matthew 16:18). But, as we have seen, the monarchical structure of the Roman Catholic Church had its beginning only four centuries after Jesus. The monarchical culture with its class separations came into existence and embedded itself thoroughly into the daily details of the church only from repeated unfounded affirmations, evasions and lies, the common tools of addicts.

Our bishops live in an addictive cultural box.