The Massachusetts Review, Inc. A Nineteenth-Century Church for the New Millennium: The Legacy of...

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A Nineteenth-Century Church for the New Millennium: The Legacy of Pius IX and John PaulIIAuthor(s): Bob Swacker and Brian DeimlingSource: The Massachusetts Review, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 121-131Published by: The Massachusetts Review, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25091638 .

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Bob Swacker ir

Brian Deimling

A Nineteenth-Century Church

for the New Millennium:

The Legacy of Pius IX

and John Paul II

Last

December, pope John pa?l ii celebrated the twenty-first

anniversary of his election as Bishop of Rome. The first

Polish-born pope intends to preside over at least the beginning of the third millennium of the Christian era. Much celebrated

in the American media, John Paul remains a popular figure among American Catholics even though a majority disagree

with him on such issues as birth control, married priests, and

women's ordination. The story of the modern papacy and its

continued estrangement from modernity is significant to Cath

olics and non-Catholics alike. The Roman Catholic Church,

having a global presence and an influence over the behavior and

beliefs of many individuals, exercises real power in the world.

To understand John Paul and his legacy, it is essential to take

both a longer and more global view. His twenty-one-year pon tificate must be placed within the historical and cultural con

text of the last 150 years. Along with John Paul himself, the

figure of Pope Pius IX (1846-1878), the architect of the modern

Catholic papacy, looms large over the period. Building on the

foundations of papal autocracy laid by Pius IX, John Paul has

shaped the Roman Catholic Church as a force for conservative

political and social reaction in the coming century, turning away from the culture of modern Europe and embracing the de

veloping world. Real growth of the church has been confined to Africa and Asia. These two activist popes of the modern peri

od, Pius IX and John Paul II, are fundamentally responsible for the political and demographic repositioning of Catholicism.

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The Massachusetts Review

Whether Catholics in the industrialized West will follow or con

tinue to drift apart from Rome remains to be seen.

TENDING THE FLOCK

Elected during the intellectual turbulence of the mid-19th cen

tury, Pius IX was a proselytizing innovator, traveling more than

any pope before him and supporting far-reaching evangeliz ing. He was known as the "Missionary Pope" for his efforts at

bringing those outside the reaches of Christianity to the Roman

Catholic faith. As a young priest in 1823-1824 he had visited

South America with long stays in Argentina and Chile. Under his leadership missionary activity expanded in Africa and Asia.

He worked consistently to de-Italianize the College of Cardi

nals, appointing ten foreign cardinals in 1850. At the First Vati can Council (1870) bishops from Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, and the Philippines, and vicars apostolic representing Vietnam,

China, and Japan were in attendance.

Called by the College of Cardinals to St. Peter's throne in an

age of readily accessible air travel, John Paul II has made the most of his opportunities, logging more than sixty foreign visits, most of them to the Third World. He has visited the Dominican

Republic, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Uru

guay, Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile in South America;

Turkey, Pakistan, Japan, India, Bangla Desh, Singapore, Fiji, South Korea, Indonesia, and the Philippines in Asia. In Africa,

John Paul has visited almost all sub-Saharan countries (some of them twice), many the scenes of major missionary activity: South Africa, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, both Congos, Kenya, Ni

geria, Benin, Togo, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswa

na, and Madagascar. He has taken more trips to Africa than to

Europe. He has crossed the Sahara more often than the Alps. In general, John Paul has supported syncretism of Christian

ity with local folk culture and the practices of African Tradi

tional Religions. There are an estimated 2,000 Catholic congre

gations in Africa presently separated from Rome over cultural

issues and their reincorporation into communion with Rome

is an important goal. While he spoke out against Voodoo in

Haiti, he has increasingly supported the idea of inculturation

in Brazil and Africa.

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A Nineteenth-Century Church for the New Millennium

In 1990, John Paul inaugurated the Basilica of Our Lady of

Peace that President Felix Houphouet-Boigny of the impov erished Ivory Coast built for $150 million in his home village of Yamoussoukro. It is the largest church in the world, seating 10,000 in air-conditioned luxury. While many European Cath

olics objected to the ostentatious use of public wealth, L'Os

servatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper which reflects the

pope's position, hailed the act as "an historic gesture on behalf

of Africa's poor," and criticized the hostile European press as

a "moral lynch mob."

John Paul is energized by the fresh enthusiasm of Catholics in the Third World, a welcome change for him from the jaded,

materialistic Catholics in Europe. He regularly rails against the developed countries for not sharing their wealth with the

world's poor. While he appreciates their devotion, he loses no

opportunity to denounce politically active priests and bishops, the popular church, or liberation theology in Latin America.

He reserves for himself the right to draw political lessons from

Catholic teaching. In fact, during his 1988 trip to Bolivia he ac

knowledged local poverty but complimented the Bolivians on

their "festive capacity for life."

Why Asians and Africans have been swelling the ranks of the

Catholic Church is difficult to know. Vatican numbers show that between 1978 and 1993 the population of African Catholics increased from 50 million to 90 million. Recent estimates show as many as 8,000 African converts per day. Beyond theological considerations, a religion emanating from the developed world has a panache that, using an old comparison, may be as potent

today as it was in the 4th century when Christians proselytized among the Germanic, Slavic, and Celtic tribes with the prestige and status of Rome on their side. In an age of mass communi cations new ideas travel swiftly and Asians and Africans are no

strangers to Christian culture. Some of the culture is only super ficial, which may explain why it is a growing custom in Japan today to exchange Christmas gifts, or why it is not uncommon to find bars, restaurants, and department stores across China

decorated with colorful cutouts of Christmas trees and Santa Claus and his reindeer-drawn sleigh even in the summer. Re ification among people in the Third World does not end with

Big Macs and denims; it is certainly involved in religious culture

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as well: accept Christianity, become Western.

The shift of the Roman Catholic Church's energies to the southern continents, and its increasing acceptance in Africa and

Asia, has as much to do with the way Pius IX and John Paul II have refocused Catholicism as it does with the triumphal sta tus of consumer capitalism and Westernized mass culture. Pius

needs to be remembered in order to understand the roots of this world-historic shift. While Pius was initially viewed as a reform

er, it soon became clear that he was an anti-modern romantic who wished to consolidate church power even more around the

papacy, and triumph over the forces of the Enlightenment, science, nationalism, socialism, and liberalism.

ROOTS OF AUTOCRACY

Pius's great work was the Vatican Council he convened in

1870. Here was his chance to do battle with Voltaire, Locke, Marx, Mazzini, Darwin and all the others whose perfidious beliefs and theories challenged his worldview. He spent his

entire papacy with the council's planning, building up the

papacy to set this council apart from the counciliar tradition in which the bishops discussed and debated doctrinal questions.

The Vatican Council would be completely dominated by the

Bishop of Rome.

Pius had backed out on Mazzini in the 1848 nationalist at

tempt to unify Italy. A dozen years later he stood against Mazzini,

Garibaldi, Cavour, and Victor Emmanuel when a united Italy was proclaimed, because it included the Papal States and had

its eyes on Rome. When King Victor Emmanuel's popular plebi scite on the incorporation of Rome into Italy as the new capital

(since 1862 it had been Florence) won 153,681 to 1,507 Pius petu

lantly retreated to the 108.7-acre Vatican enclave as a "prisoner." He lashed out, calling on Italians to boycott the new Italian gov ernment. (Neither he nor his successors left the grounds until

the 1929 Lateran Accord with Mussolini "liberated" them and

gave the Catholic Church educational access to the Italian

public school system and Vatican control over public morals

in Rome, as well as a significant indemnity. The price was a

begrudging papal acceptance of the political reality of Italy.)

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Always a supporter of religious freedom for Catholics, Pius

signed an 1851 Concordat with Isabella II of Spain and a similar

agreement in 1855 with Austria's Franz Josef opposing religious rights for anyone except Catholics. His opposition to democ

racy and republicanism provoked reaction in Western Europe where democratic impulses were gaining ground, and also in

the United States where his opposition to public schools and

the social work of Protestant benevolent associations intensified Nativist sentiments and anti-immigrant hostility. Needless to

say, the pope opposed socialism and trade unionism. While desiring the Vatican Council to be ecumenical, Pius

further alienated Protestant and Orthodox traditions when in

1854 he issued his papal bull Ineffabilis Deus unilaterally pro

mulgating the devisive dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Indeed, boosting the prestige of Mary's cult gave him the clout to make serious theological additions to church doctrine. He

built up his reputation as an innovator of faith, positioning himself in the process as a syncretist of Catholic tradition with

pre-Christian Indo-European Earth goddess beliefs. Two years later, in the same vein, Pius introduced the simi

larly divisive Feast of the Sacred Heart and its cultish practices into the Church calendar. This devotional symbol of Catholic

Romanticism, some elements of which had been around since the later Middle Ages but always outside of mainstream Ca

tholicism, was criticized by many in the Church, especially the

Jesuits. It succeeded in widening the gulf between Rome and Protestant and Orthodox Christians. It reached its height when,

during the last years of his life, Pius became the primary pa tron of the enormous Basilica of the Sacred Heart (Sacr? Coeur), started in 1875, built high on the northern hill of Montmartre in "exculpation for the sins" of the Communards during the

Paris Commune in 1870, when workers tried to set up the world's first socialist state. Here, with a symbolic cluster of shin

ing white cupolas and a central dome, Pius and the entire French

Right could celebrate their victory with a prominent beacon

looking backward to less threatening times.

Secular and progressive Parisians reacted to Sacr? Coeur by rallying to retain the Eiffel Tower, constructed of steel, the sym bol of a new industrial age, across town on the Champ de Mars. It had been designed as the temporary centerpiece for the Paris

125




Exhibition of 1889, a tower of human achievement through sci ence and industry, and became a symbol set in striking juxta position to the monument celebrating the French Right and Pius's gauntlet to the 19th century.

The promulgation of the Syllabus of Errors in the 1864 encyc lical Quanta Cura attacked "progress, liberalism, and modern science." It also opposed democracy and the free press, and claimed control of all science, culture, and education by the

Catholic Church. It rejected liberty of faith for other creeds. And it proclaimed complete independence of the Roman Church from any state controls. The eighty sections of the document constitute a massive gesture of defiance aimed at everything Pius disliked about the world he lived in.

When the Vatican Council was finally convened, most of Pius's agenda had been completed. He used the "ecumenical" council to tighten his grip on the Holy See's organization and on Catholic theology. In 1870 Pius proclaimed the dogma of

papal infallibility as well as the universal episcopate of the Bish

op of Rome, giving him immediate ordinary jurisdiction over

every diocese in the world. As far as he was concerned, there was

little left to do. Pius IX died in 1878. The liberalization he had battled with his Syllabus of Errors became a fact of life in twen

tieth-century Europe and America. Subsequent popes increas

ingly turned their attention to control over the faithful: the In dex of Banned Books remained in force until the Second Vati can Council (1962-1965), and, in theory at least, Roman Catho lics pursuing higher education in the 1960's still had to seek the

written authorization of their bishop in order to read the works of John Locke or Immanuel Kant. A whole Catholic education al infrastructure remained in place or had been established in

nations where such parallel institutions were legal. This intel

lectual ghettoization of some of the best Catholic minds (volun tary in democratic regimes) no doubt contributed to the sense

of the Church as a society apart from the modern world, particu larly in America, where Catholics were a numerical minority.

The old Augustinian sense that believers were citizens of the City of God sojourning in the corrupt City of Man must have been

irresistible, and was reinforced socially by prohibitions against

intermarriage with non-Catholics and the encouragement of

separate Catholic organizations for youth, women, business

men, and workers, as well as Catholic political parties.

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REFORM AND REACTION

With the advent of Vatican II, the Catholic Church at last

seemed to be poised for a historic opportunity to engage the

minds of her wayward children. Unlike the fundamentalist

Protestant churches, which were experiencing explosive growth but which rejected the role of science and reason, the Catholic

Church?at the center of intellectual life for so many centuries

?possessed a tradition of historical and Biblical scholarship which could meet modern objectors at least halfway on their

own turf. Notions of natural law and the Catholic philosophical tradition, and the declarations of the Second Vatican Council, enabled the Church to initiate dialogue with both non-Chris

tians and atheists.

The pontificate of John Paul II, which began during the first

flowering of this engagement, has represented something quite different. The carefully crafted declarations of the Council were

being taken too far by eager reformers and secularizers within

the Church; the house had to be put in order. While remaining

enthusiastically committed to dialogue and photo opportunities with other religious and political leaders, within the Church

itself John Paul's pontificate has reincarnated the combative

and intolerant spirit of Pius IX. In speeches in the United States

and elsewhere, he has reminded seminarians in stern words and

raised voice that there will be no easy laicization of priests who

later doubt their vocation. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who once

criticized the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith as

an anachronism (it had formerly been known as the Office of

the Holy Inquisition), had a change of heart under John Paul

and now heads the ministry which seeks uniformity in doctrine

and liturgical practice. For centuries the Curia, the clerical government of the Vati

can, had been hostile to general unsupervised gatherings of bish

ops and to any rumblings of conciliarism?the notion that in

fallible teaching authority rested not with the Bishop of Rome

and his staff of permanent clerical bureaucrats, but with the en

tire body of bishops as a whole, assembled in a church council.

Collegiality?the idea that the pope should respect and consult

his fellow bishops?might be seen as a nod toward the conciliar

doctrine, which had in fact been declared an article of faith by the Council of Constance (1414-1418), confirmed by Pope Martin

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V, and later disavowed. One reason the Renaissance popes were so slow to respond to the Protestant crisis was that they feared their powers and prerogatives might be considerably curbed if

an ecumenical council of bishops was summoned. To understand Pius IX and John Paul II in context we must

understand that there are two motivating factors in ecclesiastical

history: general struggles inside the Catholic Church, and strug gles between the Church and the outside world. In ecclesiastical

history from about the fourteenth century to the present, we wit ness these two processes: viewed from what we might term an external perspective, it is the story of how the Church moves from the center of intellectual life and leadership in western civ ilization to a place at the periphery of that society and a posi tion of hostility toward the contemporary world. Viewed from

what we might term an internal perspective, it is the story of the consolidation of doctrinal, jurisdictional, and administra tive authority in the person of the pope. These two processes

proceed more or less inversely: as the Church grows culturally weaker and more marginalized, the pope grows more power ful; this culminates with the triumphant 1870 declarations of

Vatican I, by which Pius IX for all intents and purposes remade the Catholic Church as an organization with one infallible

bishop, whose wishes and utterances are carried down by a series of clerical secretaries (cardinals, bishops, and priests). This is not to say that there have not always been powerful popes claim

ing extraordinary primacy throughout most historical periods. It is only in the modern period, however, that the entire Church

(and in particular all the bishops) have signed onto the model of the pope as a Shiite Imam or a divine oracle. This is the model of the papacy championed today by John Paul II and his con

servative supporters. Seen schematically, then, Vatican II was the belated triumph

of the liberals or conciliarists over Pius IX and the papal ul tramontanists (those who wanted to centralize control of the

Church "over the mountains" in Rome). John Paul represents the "reaction" to this "revolution."

Reaction, however, plays itself out primarily within the

Church, since this is the only sphere of activity in which the

pope still maintains considerable authority. Under John Paul

II, no dissent has been tolerated. In the United States, Charles

Curran, a priest and tenured professor at Catholic University

128




of America in Washington, D.C., was dismissed from his post. Curran had suggested in his academic writing that the Vatican's ban on all forms of artificial birth control might not be a moral absolute but rather a Christian ideal which becomes increasing ly complicated as it is applied to individual circumstances and

daily life. Unlike theology departments at other Catholic univer

sities, C.U.A. is papally chartered; an American judge ruled in favor of Rome and against Curran, but C.U.A. has received on

going censure from academic organizations concerned with in tellectual freedom.

In Europe, John Paul's heavy hand fell on a number of Ger man bishoprics. Here, a centuries-long tradition functioned in

the election of new bishops by cathedral canons or church offi cers. Refusing to accept their prerogative, the pope installed his own staunchly conservative candidate over the protests of Ger

man theologians and much of the German church.

John Paul's project of compiling a "Universal Catechism" for the whole Church further reflects the desire for uniformi

ty. By having their viewpoints reflected in the catechism, then

pointing to the document as the definitive statement of faith,

reactionary groups and factions within the Church now have a powerful tool at their disposal when they claim to speak for the Catholic tradition. The new catechism is based on an older

work?its prototype was published in the 1600's. (The gender exclusive language of the draft was so jarring that the American

bishops sent it back to the Vatican.) The Curran affair and the

imposition of the catechism demonstrate the Vatican's attempt to infantilize the lay faithful, spoon-feeding them answers to

ready-made questions. To further monopolize the field of theol

ogy and curb dissent, John Paul proceeded with a much-publi cized "oath of fidelity" that all Catholic theologians were re

quired to swear. In this oath, theologians promised to respect not just infallible pronouncements (which most Catholic theo

logians agree are rare), but also the "ordinary" teaching author

ity of the Vatican. In theological terms this means adherence to the private opinions and interpretations of the pope and the

Curia, in matters that should be open for debate among trained

specialists. Catholic thought has always recognized grades of

theological certainty. The highest grade would be, say, a state ment made by Jesus Christ himself. The lowest grade would

be, for example, John Paul's admonition to the Polish people

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(through Cardinal Glemp) during imposition of martial law in 1981 to cooperate peacefully with their Communist masters. De

spite the wishful thinking of conservative hagiographers, the fact remains that John Paul resisted neither the Nazi occupation of his homeland, nor its domination by the Soviets forty years later. Those who claim there was a Reagan?John Paul II anti communist "axis" during the 1980's are sojourning in the men

tal fairy world of the former President. Over the summer of 1998, Pope John Paul II pursued a series

of measures to greatly increase his direct control over the Catho lic Church. These include unprecedented moves like the virtual abolition of the ability of national bishops' conferences to speak

with their own voice on matters such as disarmament or eco

nomic development. In coming years, the Catholic Church will

speak increasingly through one voice. As the pontiff grows visi

bly weaker, the election and policies of his successor will become an important political issue.

Mindful of Pius IX's ultimately fruitless crusade against the

forces of modernity in Europe, John Paul II is determined to

keep these same forces, which have overwhelmed the secular

western world, locked securely outside the fortress of the Catho

lic Church. To that end, he has vigorously pursued missionary work in the less developed societies of Africa and Asia, bolstering

the Church with the faith of non-westerners. Consider also the

careful diplomatic alliance between the Vatican and Muslim

countries, which in 1994 derailed the United Nations Cairo Con

vention's declaration on women's rights and contraception. When the pope speaks of freedom and dignity, as he did most

recently in Cuba, he does not mean the freedom of the individ

ual. Rather, the pope speaks of the freedom and dignity of the

human person abstractly or collectively, conflating humanistic

or Enlightenment notions with Christianity, and equating

Christianity with the Catholic tradition. The human person is

already properly championed and represented by the Church.

Freedom in and of itself is not an end; in western countries time

and time again, the pope has decried the "individualism" of

liberal societies. In fact, some of his strongest support has come

from organizations such as Opus Dei, which originated in fascist

Spain, cooperated with the Franco regime, and is associated to

day throughout Europe and Latin America with secrecy and re

action. Under John Paul II, Opus Dei has been elevated to a

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special and historically unprecedented status of "personal prela ture," placing its lay members outside the ordinary jurisdiction

of Catholic bishops, like sixteenth-century Jesuit priests. What John Paul seeks is freedom for the Church, and the same

independence from state controls championed by Pius IX, re

gardless of the democratic or authoritarian nature of the state.

Pius said that his policy was to use religious liberty in non-Cath olic countries to advance the cause of the Church while he op

posed the same freedom of conscience for others in Catholic states. Similarly, John Paul has intervened unsuccessfully in Irish politics to keep divorce illegal, while he speaks eloquently of the dignity of women. Clearly, the "sacredness" of the human

person is not the same thing as certain inalienable rights, and

though the idiom is modern, the content of his message remains medieval. Little has really changed since the days of Pius IX.

As an increasingly disinterested Europe looks on, the pope now turns to the Third World, leading the Roman Catholic Church behind him. Long viewed by liberals as a troubling bas tion of poverty, tyranny, gender oppression, and disease, to John

Paul II the Third World represents a potential Eden, untainted

by the original sins of modernity.

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