Now that the College of Cardinals is no longer ruling out Americans, your becoming Pope is now less impossible than before!
As a Protestant, I do support the Bishop of Rome making his own diocese his first priority. It does seem to me, though, this's in tension with his universal jurisdiction - did First Vatican have anything interesting to say about the balance here?
Also, those're beautiful images of Christ leading the Church and us responding to Him; thank you.
Like many anathemas, there is (as I understand it) a range of broadly acknowledged interpretations, and an even wider range of interpretations that fit the original public meaning of the text (whether or not anyone involved actually intended them), so this is just my personal take on it, but:
By the time Vatican I rolls around, there's no serious dispute anywhere over the fact that the pope's jurisdiction is *in some sense* universal. By this point in Catholic history, everyone agrees papal primacy (though ill-defined) gives the pope authority to do things like decree the universal date of Easter, anathematize a heretic, or convoke an ecumenical council.
The Scriptural and Patristic sources of this belief are, of course, disputed to this day among Catholics, Orthodox, and every flavor of Protestant, but, within the Catholic Church, the belief is settled by the Counter-Reformation (not least because everyone who disagreed with it went into schism!). For my part, I will just add that reading ecumenical councils of the first millennium has settled, in my mind, the question of whether the primitive Church believed the bishop of Rome played some special universal function. (IMO, they very much did.)
But, whatever one's views on this controversy, for the council fathers at Vatican I, the question at this point, is not "does the pope have some form of universal jurisdiction?" but rather "what shape does that universal jurisdiction take?" Basically, there are a lot of other entities that are attempting to interpose themselves between the pope and day-to-day Christian practice, including Gallicans, Febronianists, national episcopal conferences, individual bishops, heads of religious orders, and the new crop of liberal-secular nation-states. These forces, acting individually or in concert, had various conceptions of papal primacy which tended to impose limits or "checks and balances" on the pope's powers, at least in certain areas. For example, the French state seemed to believe it had an inherent authority to appoint bishops directly, without consulting Rome and even against Rome's direct will -- and also that they could block appeals to Rome in canonical matters. The French episcopal conference believed it could edit papal decisions on the fly before implementing them. Some French bishops thought they could unilaterally "delay" implementation of papal changes to canon law -- indefinitely -- and that their flocks were obliged to obey these local "customs" rather than the universal law, without appeal to Rome for relief (since they could bottle those appeals up in local courts indefinitely, under their own local legislation).
(Actually maybe Vatican I is best read as defining "whatever the French think is wrong"? Which is actually a pretty good rule-of-thumb for life. Freedom fries! :P )
Ultimately, all these approaches amounted to nullification, so Vatican I rejected them. Whatever shape papal primacy had taken in the Church of the first millennium, the Council concluded, it hadn't been mediated by the King of France or the Synod of French Bishops.
This was not intended to make the pope into a kind of "bishop over the entire world," superseding the actual bishops and their crucial role. Indeed, Pastor Aeternus goes out of its way, just before the anathema, to reaffirm the role of bishops. Vatican II would go much, much further in this regard, especially in Lumen Gentium and Orientalium Ecclesiarum.
(SIDEBAR: Originally, Vatican I was intended to describe the proper function of bishops in relationship to the pope. This would have provided some useful ballast against maximalist interpretations of Pastor Aeternus. However, Vatican I was forced to disperse by the Franco-Prussian War and the occupation of Rome by the King of Italy, so we never got that document. This may have been a bit of divine intervention; I have a suspicion that the Council Fathers of Vatican I were not ready to draft a document as good as Lumen Gentium, much less Orientalium Ecclesiarum.)
Rather, in my view, the Vatican's decree on papal jurisdiction in Pastor Aeternus is designed to preserve the papacy's capacity to function as legislator of universal canon law and court of last resort. In a well-functioning Church, these are relatively minor matters, little more than the (modest) oversight a metropolitan bishop exercises over his suffragan dioceses. Thus, the pope can, in a well-functioning Church, focus chiefly on his "day job" of taking care of the Catholic flock in Rome, just like most metropolitan bishops do.
The fact that he can't currently do that suggests that the Church is not currently very well-functioning. And indeed it isn't. The pope took on a very great deal in the Counter-Reformation, as he was at the time considered the one guy you could be absolutely certain wouldn't defect under any circumstances. (Partly because he was the one guy with a sovereign state of his own, and thus couldn't get hit by an English-style Oath of Supremacy or whatever.) This made sense, especially under the conditions prevailing at the time. Nevertheless, in my view, it distorts the proper role of the papacy. Paradoxically, reducing the pervasiveness of papal authority in the Church today may require some pretty drastic exercises of papal authority, and I guess I'll stop there because I obviously will have some thoughts on that later in the series.
I'm not entirely sure that directly addresses your question, but I hope it's interesting, at any rate!
Point of clarification: Will this be a "What If?" based on you being the one who walked out instead of Leo XIV, are you assuming to be Leo's successor, or some generic future pope?
I've fully written six parts of this series, and, so far, the answer to this question hasn't really mattered.
FWIW, I started writing before Leo was elected, so it was initially conceived as an agenda for the guy about to be elected as of early May. Then he was elected, and I was still writing, so it sort of became a "here's what I think Leo should do now that he's pope."
So I guess it's closest to your first answer, but most of my proposals are pretty evergreen. For example, next week's article will feature a section on clarifications to Universi Domenici Gregis and the Fundamental Law of the Vatican City-State. Any pope can do that, be it Leo or hypothetical-me or Leo's successor or some future pope, and I'm probably going to continue recommending it until somebody goes and does it.
Ah. I was basically wondering if any of your plans took into account that you, unlike Leo, would have become the youngest Pope since Peter, and would therefore expect a longer than normal tenure.
I've definitely thought about that as something potentially important, but, so far, it hasn't been a big deal. That being said, for some of the dramatic things I have in mind, I would definitely feel a lot more at ease phasing things in over an expected 40-year reign rather than a 10-year reign. Ten years just isn't very much time!
I'm laughing at "ten years just isn't much time," in comparison to every American elected official... Even without term limits, they're still facing reelection!
My understanding is that every American president now does in fact enter office either personally in a blind panic or with his entire staff in a blind panic about how little time he has to effect Transformative Change!
I don't think it's a coincidence that the last truly, radically transformational president was FDR, who not only had large enough congressional majorities to enact almost anything he wanted (much like a king), but had 12 years in which to do it (and would've had 16!).
Of course, this is all a trap, since the American presidency is not *designed* to allow its holders to effect Transformative Change, because the President is not a king, and so that belongs elsewhere in our system. But the Pope is, literally, a king!
Now that the College of Cardinals is no longer ruling out Americans, your becoming Pope is now less impossible than before!
As a Protestant, I do support the Bishop of Rome making his own diocese his first priority. It does seem to me, though, this's in tension with his universal jurisdiction - did First Vatican have anything interesting to say about the balance here?
Also, those're beautiful images of Christ leading the Church and us responding to Him; thank you.
Looking forward to the rest of the series!
Like many anathemas, there is (as I understand it) a range of broadly acknowledged interpretations, and an even wider range of interpretations that fit the original public meaning of the text (whether or not anyone involved actually intended them), so this is just my personal take on it, but:
By the time Vatican I rolls around, there's no serious dispute anywhere over the fact that the pope's jurisdiction is *in some sense* universal. By this point in Catholic history, everyone agrees papal primacy (though ill-defined) gives the pope authority to do things like decree the universal date of Easter, anathematize a heretic, or convoke an ecumenical council.
The Scriptural and Patristic sources of this belief are, of course, disputed to this day among Catholics, Orthodox, and every flavor of Protestant, but, within the Catholic Church, the belief is settled by the Counter-Reformation (not least because everyone who disagreed with it went into schism!). For my part, I will just add that reading ecumenical councils of the first millennium has settled, in my mind, the question of whether the primitive Church believed the bishop of Rome played some special universal function. (IMO, they very much did.)
But, whatever one's views on this controversy, for the council fathers at Vatican I, the question at this point, is not "does the pope have some form of universal jurisdiction?" but rather "what shape does that universal jurisdiction take?" Basically, there are a lot of other entities that are attempting to interpose themselves between the pope and day-to-day Christian practice, including Gallicans, Febronianists, national episcopal conferences, individual bishops, heads of religious orders, and the new crop of liberal-secular nation-states. These forces, acting individually or in concert, had various conceptions of papal primacy which tended to impose limits or "checks and balances" on the pope's powers, at least in certain areas. For example, the French state seemed to believe it had an inherent authority to appoint bishops directly, without consulting Rome and even against Rome's direct will -- and also that they could block appeals to Rome in canonical matters. The French episcopal conference believed it could edit papal decisions on the fly before implementing them. Some French bishops thought they could unilaterally "delay" implementation of papal changes to canon law -- indefinitely -- and that their flocks were obliged to obey these local "customs" rather than the universal law, without appeal to Rome for relief (since they could bottle those appeals up in local courts indefinitely, under their own local legislation).
(Actually maybe Vatican I is best read as defining "whatever the French think is wrong"? Which is actually a pretty good rule-of-thumb for life. Freedom fries! :P )
Ultimately, all these approaches amounted to nullification, so Vatican I rejected them. Whatever shape papal primacy had taken in the Church of the first millennium, the Council concluded, it hadn't been mediated by the King of France or the Synod of French Bishops.
This was not intended to make the pope into a kind of "bishop over the entire world," superseding the actual bishops and their crucial role. Indeed, Pastor Aeternus goes out of its way, just before the anathema, to reaffirm the role of bishops. Vatican II would go much, much further in this regard, especially in Lumen Gentium and Orientalium Ecclesiarum.
(SIDEBAR: Originally, Vatican I was intended to describe the proper function of bishops in relationship to the pope. This would have provided some useful ballast against maximalist interpretations of Pastor Aeternus. However, Vatican I was forced to disperse by the Franco-Prussian War and the occupation of Rome by the King of Italy, so we never got that document. This may have been a bit of divine intervention; I have a suspicion that the Council Fathers of Vatican I were not ready to draft a document as good as Lumen Gentium, much less Orientalium Ecclesiarum.)
Rather, in my view, the Vatican's decree on papal jurisdiction in Pastor Aeternus is designed to preserve the papacy's capacity to function as legislator of universal canon law and court of last resort. In a well-functioning Church, these are relatively minor matters, little more than the (modest) oversight a metropolitan bishop exercises over his suffragan dioceses. Thus, the pope can, in a well-functioning Church, focus chiefly on his "day job" of taking care of the Catholic flock in Rome, just like most metropolitan bishops do.
The fact that he can't currently do that suggests that the Church is not currently very well-functioning. And indeed it isn't. The pope took on a very great deal in the Counter-Reformation, as he was at the time considered the one guy you could be absolutely certain wouldn't defect under any circumstances. (Partly because he was the one guy with a sovereign state of his own, and thus couldn't get hit by an English-style Oath of Supremacy or whatever.) This made sense, especially under the conditions prevailing at the time. Nevertheless, in my view, it distorts the proper role of the papacy. Paradoxically, reducing the pervasiveness of papal authority in the Church today may require some pretty drastic exercises of papal authority, and I guess I'll stop there because I obviously will have some thoughts on that later in the series.
I'm not entirely sure that directly addresses your question, but I hope it's interesting, at any rate!
I would really want to hear which convent your wife would be joining!
Point of clarification: Will this be a "What If?" based on you being the one who walked out instead of Leo XIV, are you assuming to be Leo's successor, or some generic future pope?
I've fully written six parts of this series, and, so far, the answer to this question hasn't really mattered.
FWIW, I started writing before Leo was elected, so it was initially conceived as an agenda for the guy about to be elected as of early May. Then he was elected, and I was still writing, so it sort of became a "here's what I think Leo should do now that he's pope."
So I guess it's closest to your first answer, but most of my proposals are pretty evergreen. For example, next week's article will feature a section on clarifications to Universi Domenici Gregis and the Fundamental Law of the Vatican City-State. Any pope can do that, be it Leo or hypothetical-me or Leo's successor or some future pope, and I'm probably going to continue recommending it until somebody goes and does it.
Ah. I was basically wondering if any of your plans took into account that you, unlike Leo, would have become the youngest Pope since Peter, and would therefore expect a longer than normal tenure.
I've definitely thought about that as something potentially important, but, so far, it hasn't been a big deal. That being said, for some of the dramatic things I have in mind, I would definitely feel a lot more at ease phasing things in over an expected 40-year reign rather than a 10-year reign. Ten years just isn't very much time!
I'm laughing at "ten years just isn't much time," in comparison to every American elected official... Even without term limits, they're still facing reelection!
My understanding is that every American president now does in fact enter office either personally in a blind panic or with his entire staff in a blind panic about how little time he has to effect Transformative Change!
I don't think it's a coincidence that the last truly, radically transformational president was FDR, who not only had large enough congressional majorities to enact almost anything he wanted (much like a king), but had 12 years in which to do it (and would've had 16!).
Of course, this is all a trap, since the American presidency is not *designed* to allow its holders to effect Transformative Change, because the President is not a king, and so that belongs elsewhere in our system. But the Pope is, literally, a king!
Appreciate the splitting up of the article, much more digestible this way!