I remember when senior officials from the then-newly created Secretariat for Communication of the Holy See—later restyled the “Dicastery” for Communication—came to do a meet-and-greet at The Thing That Used To Be Vatican Radio.
It was 2016 or thereabouts, and I was a seasoned veteran on the English news desk. The organizers had styled the meet-and-greet a “listening session” but I recall Msgr. Lucio Ruiz talking a lot before he opened the floor that day.
When he did open the discussion, I asked—roughly—whether there was a vision for responding to the communications crisis in the Vatican and the Church more broadly, how the leadership of the new Secretariat understood the way the comms crisis fit into the broader crisis in the Church, and when we would be made privy to that vision?
His response, as I recall it, was to reject the premise of the question: The Church is not in crisis.
That’s an old comms trick, the sort of thing aspiring flacks learn on Day One of their media training and a tactic veterans teach their green principals.
It was also patently false and frankly absurd, even in 2016, illustrative not only of the ostrichism that characterizes the upper echelons of power in the Church, but also—and perhaps primarily—an attitude of contempt for the faithful, especially though by no means exclusively for the laity.
I never doubted for a minute—not for a second—that the fellow believed every word of his denial.
In hindsight, I recognize that moment as the one in which I began to see I wasn’t working for the good guys.
I’ve compared the discovery to the one with which Jennifer Garner’s Sydney Bristow ended the first season of the spy show Alias. Bristow thought she was working for a super-secret CIA division called SD-6. Really, she was working for a nefarious criminal outfit by the same name, set up and run by a fanatical devotee of a fifteenth-century renegade genius trained by monks and bent on remaking the world as he willed it.
That was a classic TV “reveal” that set up the drama of Season 2 in a silly spy show. My realization was rather gradual. It had begun long before and would take a while to come on fully.
I should say I’ve shared the tongue-in-cheek Alias comparison several times privately but only once before publicly, if memory serves, when I was honored to deliver the 2022 Cafone Lecture at Seton Hall University. These remarks draw on those I made that day but treat of different specifics. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge in the past two years, so this is for me at once an exercise in thinking out loud and a measure of progress in thinking.
In any case, one important incongruity weakens the Alias comparison: SD-6 were the bad guys.
Most clerics are neither especially bad nor especially good. They’re people like the rest of us. Like the rest of us they are conditioned by their culture, hence by the institutions that create and sustain that culture.
That culture—clerical and general—is broken.
Constitutional crisis
The ongoing scandals of disgraced ex-Jesuit Fr. Marko I. Rupnik and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò are amply illustrative of the rot found in clerical and hierarchical leadership culture. They are paradigmatic, not mere scandals but converging moments of a multifaceted and polyvalent crisis in the Church.
On June 20th, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò—olim nuncio to the United States and erstwhile celebrity whistleblower of 2018-turned paranoid lunatic—let it be known that he had been brought up on charges of schism for denying Pope Francis’s legitimacy and rejecting communion with him and the worldwide college of bishops in communion with Rome.
The next day, Pope Francis’s Communicator-in-Chief, Dr. Paolo Ruffini, made it abundantly clear—explicitly, inescapably clear—in words, that the Vatican’s continued use of Rupnik’s abusive art is a matter of policy.
Viganò has his supporters—heaven only knows how—but a chorus of leading voices across the whole spectrum of opinion in the Church agreed Viganò had it coming.
There’s practically nobody—not even the most ardent Team Francis die-hards—defending Ruffini or the pope when it comes to the Vatican’s appalling policy of contempt for victims of abuse and coverup.
“I always appreciated [Viganò] as a great worker very faithful to the Holy See,” said the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, in comments regarding the sad case of Viganò. “In a certain sense [Vigano was] also an example,” Parolin also said. “When he was apostolic nuncio [to the United States] he worked extremely well,” Parolin said.
Just exactly how well Viganò really worked as nuncio to the US is a question, given he embarrassed his principal in 2015 and had more to do with keeping the McCarrick business under wraps than he ever let on in any of his spectacular J’accuse! letters from 2018. The editors and redactors of the McCarrick Report made sure we knew about that, though.
There were gaping holes in the Vatican’s version, but the folks who put it together appeared more at pains to make sure Viganò came out showing at least as poorly as Francis than they were to clarify the whys and wherefores of McCarrick’s rise.
As John Allen noted in his regular Sunday column of June 23rd, however, Parolin’s statement does take a good bit of heat off the many US bishops who expressed varying degrees of confidence in Viganò when he first blew the whistle in the sweltering August 2018, annus horribilis in the chronicles of the Church.
Basically, Viganò was never the paladin hero. As a whistleblower, I’m fond of saying, he was always more Joe Valachi than Frank Serpico. US bishops, however, knew Viganò as a competent nuncio. So, they said his allegations should get a careful vetting. They were right about that.
Whether one credits the Vatican’s assertion that the 2020 McCarrick Report “comprehensively vindicated” Pope Francis is beside the point. The willingness of some US bishops to entertain Viganò’s original set of allegations in 2018 can’t be turned into blanket support for his schismatic rants or his espousal of tinfoil hat conspiracy theories.
As Viganò’s public statements became more strident—they would become utterly unhinged, and in short order—some soi-disant papal defenders nevertheless tried to paint everyone who had ever expressed any willingness to take Viganò’s allegations seriously as likewise disloyal and deranged.
That was never really a plausible line, nor was it particularly helpful to Pope Francis. Parolin’s remark deserves to be the final nail for it.
In any case, Viganò made the job for Vatican prosecutors in the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith a great deal easier on Friday, June 28th, when he issued a statement—this time literally titling it, J’Accuse—foreswearing communion with Pope Francis and accusing Pope Francis of schism and heresy, denying the legitimacy of the tribunal before which he was being tried, and calling for Pope Francis’s removal.
There was every reason to try Viganò in the open, but that’s not what happened.
The Vatican described the charges against Viganò in general terms—schism—but never said exactly which of Viganò’s many statements were actually criminal. That missed step was important. The law is a teacher, as the saying goes, and the application of the law to circumstance can only serve the law’s didactic purpose when it is public and explicit.
Then, justice is a public good.
Justice, another saying goes, must be seen to be done. Both the accused and the public, in whose name the organs of government exact justice deserve to know exactly what criminal wrongdoing there was. This is a basic requirement, one without which there is not even the semblance of justice.
The opacity of ecclesiastical processes has too often protected the guilty, while the secrecy under which those processes continue to be conducted harms the innocent.
The rationale for judicial secrecy is that it protects both accusers and the accused and safeguards the integrity of the judicial process. Experience teaches the implausibility of that rationale. Even if it were more generally plausible than it is, applying it to notorious cases is notoriously problematic.
Publicizing the results of a process without publishing the charges and without publicly conducting the process itself destroys the public trust. People who may be subjected to such travesties of justice have every reason to fear those who wield such power. They have no reason to trust that those who wield such power are interested in the substance of justice.
Tried secretly, a case like the one there was against Viganò engenders timidity in the public counsels. Trying such a case in secret encourages insalubrious elements. It lends credence to outlandish opinions. It has the effect, if not the intention, of terror.
The problem is nothing new in Rome.
The 19th-century polemicist, Edmond About, noted how Roman officials from the pope on down, “[S]ervants of a most merciful but sometimes severe God,” all, “simultaneously abuse both mercy and justice,” are, “full of indulgence for the indifferent, for their friends, and for themselves,” and, “treat with extreme rigor whoever has had the misfortune to become obnoxious to power.”
These considerations apply in spades to the Rupnik Affair, which never would have come to light were it not for the doggedness of journalists.
Remember that Rupnik is accused of spiritually, psychologically, and sexually abusing dozens and perhaps scores of victims—most of them women religious—over a thirty-year stretch of time, much of which he spent right under the noses of his erstwhile Jesuit superiors in Rome and during which he was fêted by popes beginning with St. John Paul II.
Roman and Jesuit authorities heard tell of Rupnik’s depraved conduct as early as the 1990s, but either winked at his behavior or actively sought to discredit his accusers. Rupnik was investigated multiple times between 2019 and 2023. He was secretly tried for absolving an “accomplice” in a sexual sin, but the secret excommunication imposed for that crime was secretly and very swiftly lifted. Eventually, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—as it was then styled—decided there was a very strong case against Rupnik ruled the charges statute-barred and declined to prosecute.
I have discussed elsewhere and at length the reasons for which that decision was cause for consternation. Basically, statutes of limitations exist to protect the integrity of processes. They may be waived when the crime is severe and the rights of the accused to examine evidence and confront witnesses secure. In Rupnik’s case, there was a bumper crop of both evidence and living witnesses. CDF nevertheless decided to let it die on the vine.
The Jesuits expelled him for disobedience—not for serial rape—and Koper diocese in Rupnik’s native Slovenia picked him up. When news of that reached the public, it ignited worldwide outrage and brought even more intense public scrutiny, in the face of which Pope Francis decided to give Rupnik’s case to the DDF again for review. Francis sent the case to the DDF nine months ago, but about the only thing we’ve heard about it is that the business is a “delicate matter” though well in hand.
In any other society, a single such miscarriage of justice would trigger protest. Regular abuse of justice over decades and indeed centuries would produce sustained and increasingly raucous agitation demanding reform. The only reason such protests have been relatively few and such agitation episodic and piecemeal rather than sustained and concerted is the sheer size and articulation of the Church, but that is changing.
It will soon become impossible for churchmen to ignore the constitutional crisis in which we are joined.
The task of thinking
For Catholics who see the need to think through the current crisis in the Church, three things continue to make the business difficult.
The failure to distinguish power from the structural apparatus through which it is wielded, is one. Confusion—occasionally conflation—of current and long-standing modes of organizing and directing power with the governing power properly considered in itself, is another.
The tendency to mistake a clear though partial view of specific facets with a complete vision of the matter as a whole, is a third.
Consternating as the secret process Viganò received may be, confounding as candid minds must judge the Rupnik Affair from start to finish, each illustrates the workaday fraudulence of ecclesiastical justice.
What we need now is a reckoning with this appalling fact of our circumstances.
Power in the Church is too often unbalanced and poorly wielded. The organs and structures of power in the Church are incapable of governing the society for the good of which the power itself is given. That, however, is only part—no more than half—of the problem.
Measuring the extent of the rot, finding the source(s) of it, and studying its progress, are all needful.
They are nonetheless mere preliminaries. The real work of reform must address the organization and direction of power in the Church. The work of real reform will begin only when we come to grips with the fact of the Church’s power structure—hierarchical and divinely given if dogma is creditable—and squarely face the fact that the Church’s current modes and orders of power are untenable.
We must, in other words, together consider how to reform the modes and orders of ecclesiastical government in a way that does not run afoul of her divinely given hierarchical constitution. That begins with recognizing something the great Massachusetts lawyer and Founding Father, John Adams, saw very clearly, i.e., that the people have:
[The] right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.
I confess the quote a favorite, about which I have written before—in both secular and Catholic contexts—and spoken on occasion in connection with our current ecclesiastical situation. Adams offered his remark in his Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law, which he wrote to demonstrate the superiority of the laws in British America with respect to those two systems. It is also noteworthy here, that Adams held the canon and feudal systems to contain the concrete threat of tyranny.
Leave aside for now the question of whether we have tyrannical rule in the Church. Let us agree that the Church is a power structure—at least that she has a divinely given hierarchical power structure—and where there is power, there is the constant threat of its abuse. Let us also agree that the faithful have a right to knowledge of the character and conduct of their rulers in the faith.
Let these be words for a conversation.
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I fundamentally object to Archbishop Vigano being slandered as unhinged. His texts are the most accurate description of the presrnt state of the Freemasonic infiltrated Ecclesial Mayhem. May God Bless the noble whistleblower in hiding.
So off we go into the wild blue yonder!
Dear James Connor – The Wide Blue Yonder of Truth & Life is infinitely preferable to the deep, dark, demonic entanglement of deception & death referred to by MCN.
Please recall John 18:36 – “Mine is not a kingdom of this world.”
King Jesus Christ is calling you, me, & every person out of the dark, into His Kingdom of Light; while we have breathe the choice is ours.
Ever in the grace & mercy of God in Christ Jesus; love & blessings from Marty
Dr. Martin, thanks for speaking so truthfully.
How about “the Truth will set you free” applied to whole Church via the simple publication of the Gagnon Report?
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‘How about “the Truth will set you free” applied to whole Church via the simple publication of the Gagnon Report?’
Dear MCN, you are SO RIGHT. It’s impossible to imagine our LORD Jesus, His Most Blessed Mother, & His Apostles tolerating the side-stepping of ‘The Gagnon Report’ by all those supposedly representing them in Rome.
A flagrant example of the anti-Apostolic mindset now infesting Rome.
Some years ago, as a new member of a Catholic parish, I was approached by a senior parishioner master-mason, who claimed close affiliation with our Archbishop, other bishops, & priests. His blandishments failed as I had already seen the faith-destroying havoc wrought by freemasonry in university colleagues & relatives. The occult links between freemasonry & witchcraft were also all too apparent. It sustains an ungodly ‘power-over’ culture.
Faithful Christians can find strong support in Holy Scripture & in the magisterial Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). Among many injunctions, section 450 of the CCC instructs:
“From the beginning of Christian history, the assertion of Christ’s lordship over the world & over history has implicitly recognized that humans should not submit their personal freedom in an absolute manner to any earthly power . . .” Ephesians 5:11 reminds us: “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” Among many similar commands 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 makes matters especially clear. No equivocation can circumvent these strong Apostolic instructions.
When priests who’re legitimately baptized, confirmed, confessed, communicated, ordained, & installed in parishes have personally committed to banned allegiances & occult practices the magisterium says sacraments they minister are valid. However, true Catholics report on a qualitatively superior experience when their priests are unsullied by such double-mindedness.
Discussing with women leaders from the Catholic Charismatic Renewal & the Australian Catholic University (male clergy refused to discuss the issue), we realized baptism, confirmation, holy Eucharist, holy orders, and the creeds have not proven sufficient to stop clergy from making allegiances incompatible with Catholic Christianity.
We were inspired to think of a simple ‘Personal Affirmation of Faith Allegiance’ as an easy way to increase clarity.
A draft ‘PAFA’ is offered here for general comment.
I …………………………………….. of …………………………………………………….. solemnly affirm I have no allegiance that conflicts with my Christian allegiance to the Catholic Church & obedience to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I affirm that I have no association with any pagan or occult or atheistic organization or freemasonry or witchcraft or their like. I appreciate that this is a solemn affirmation of my personal faith allegiance & that, if proven false, I may be held to account & be liable for legal sanctions & resultant costs.
Signed………………………………. Dated……………. Witnessed……………………………… . Dated…………….
Many would feel more secure in observing directions from Pope, Cardinals, Archbishops & Bishops; & in receiving sacramental ministry from our priests & deacons if they had openly faith-bonded with us faihful lay Catholics by an unequivocal witness to their good faith & unsullied commitment.
Always seeking to hear & lovingly obey King Jesus Christ; blessings from marty
Amen!
Amen Marty!
Without Francis there would be no “l’affaire Vigano.” That is so diametrically opposite the case in the matter of “Father” Rupnick. His acts were those of a sick man who took advantage of those vulnerable persons under his influence. Altieri pairing off Archbishop Vigano and “Father Rupnick” doesn’t work for me and I’m beginning to suspect just about everything Altieri writes these days.
Christopher R. Altieri (2024): “. . the Church is a power structure — at least that she has a divinely given hierarchical power structure — and where there is power, there is the constant threat of its abuse.”
Lord Acton (1887): “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power to corrupt absolutely.”
Dear Christopher, this article could have been written as a response to any of the legion chaotic circumstances in any of the many administrative shambles that characterize most human societies. The more powerful they are the worse it is.
“The divine” is diminished & almost completely extinguished in the current Roman mis-uses of power. Misfeasance, even malfeasance, is where the whole problem lies.
King Jesus Christ & His faithful Apostles provided us with a self-giving “power under” sociality that stands in stark contrast to the hierarchical “power over” sociality of the world that, over the centuries, our clerks have fondly dalied with & that, led by its top clerks, now seems to be attempting to fuse with.
Just as The Common Law in Britain was inspired by The Magna Carta, so true Catholic Christianity was, is, and always will be inspired by The Holy Spirit-anointed Apostolic witness to Jesus Christ that is available to the whole world, in every language, in The New Testament, that is factually far more catholic than our Church!
Surely this is why wise Catholics everywhere measure all things by the instructions & life example of our Lord Jesus Christ & His Apostles.
That is well exemplified by the 3,500 plus citations from The New Testament which are the foundation of our Catechism of the Catholic Church:
“DIVINE” writ large – unshakeably, unbreakably, unbeatably!
In God’s great mercy may we soon have clerks – both small & great – who love Christ’s Word & manage all things in obedience to Christ’s Word. There is no other Way by which we can be saved, dear Christopher.
Always seeking to lovingly obey King Jesus Christ; blessings from marty
Our irrevocable loyalty is to Jesus our King.
The cheerleaders for the Pontiff Francis, of both the episcopal and “professional-Catholic” ranks, are very vocal about their expectations for shows of “loyalty to Pope Francis.” Eminence Tagle of Manila, with his of Phillipines-Mass-liturgy-pledge of “loyalty to Pope Francis, forever” is among the more pathetic episcopal examples.“
I certainly agree with Mr. Altieri that the Church leadership establishment is rotten, and it’s main “preoccupations” seem to be a deluded concern about their own standing, a contempt for “underlings,” a complete renunciation of the divine virtue of justice, and an utter contempt for truth.
The continuing “dis-organization” of the Church is tailor-made for fraudulent sycophants, coverup artists snd abusers like Theodore McCarrick, who before he was “found out” for being a sociopath sex abuser, performed the function of “liar-in-Chief” on behalf of the US Bishops, who (with a few exceptions) were I am sure delighted that McCarrick was doing their lying for them.
Adam DeVille, in these pages at CWR, (and others I suppose) has pointed out that The Church needs to be usher in a new system of division of authority, and checks and balances, in recognition of the reality that clergy and Bishops and Cardinals and Pontiffs are, like all men and women, subject to being corrupted.
And regarding corruption in general, it is sobering to learn, if and when we ever do, that the famous axiom: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” was penned by a Catholic man in England, over 100 years ago, when writing to a prominent Bishop or Cardinal in England, expressing his concerns about “the First Vatican Council,” and the eagerness of so many in the Church establishment to declare that the Pope was “infallible” (for some, to the point of being an oracle of God). That Vatican I in the end penned an extremely limited statement of “papal infallibility” was a very good thing. However, the insurgents for papalotry remain as ever before.
Dear Chris in Maryland, your incisive analysis caused me to check Jesus’ discernment of the church leaders of His day.
John 8 verses 23-24 & 44 is illuminating –
“You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world.”
“The devil is your father and you prefer to do what your father wants. He was a murderer from the start; he was never grounded in truth; there is no truth in him at all; when he lies he is drawing on his own store, because he is a liar & the father of lies.”
The power brokers in the Church today seem to merit the same rebuke from our King.
Ever in the love of The Lamb; blessings from marty
Further authenticating your comment, dear Chris (on this feast day of Saint Eusebius of Vercelli), a cogent benchmark for what proper popes must stand for –
“Eusebius said, pastors must urge the faithful not to consider the cities of the world as their permanent dwelling place but to seek the future city, the definitive heavenly Jerusalem.
This ‘eschatological reserve’ enables Pastors and faithful to preserve the proper scale of values without ever submitting to the fashions of the moment and the unjust claims of the current political power.
The authentic scale of values – Eusebius’ whole life seems to say – does not come from emperors of the past or of today but from Jesus Christ.”
Pope Benedict XVI, in a General Audience on October 2007.
A thoughtful and useful, at least for me, addendum to a slightly confused, at least for me, but nontheless helpful and hopeful essay by one of the very very very few Vatican accredited (?) correspondents who looks like coming out of this papacy with a substantially reinforced reputation.
Deacon Ed, I agree 100%.
Thanks, Harry. I’ve seen this before with Altieri and finally decided to speak thecm truth as I am given to understand it.
We read: “The work of real reform will begin only when we come to grips with the fact of the Church’s power structure—hierarchical and divinely given if dogma is creditable—and squarely face the fact that the Church’s current modes and orders of power are untenable.”
Altieri proposes Rupnik as the lens through which to concisely understand how “something is rotten in the state of Denmark [Church of Rome]” (Shakespeare). But, more broadly, might we also begin to consider something like the following…
Four points plus a summary:
FIRST, with the Synod on Synodality we start with something that is not quite apostolic and also “not a parliament.” Might we consider the lens of “arbitration”? Under this lens or model, and in olden times, different tribal groups, say, would live by their own cultures (call it “polyhedral”?), but in those cases of cross-boundary disputes, a mutually acceptable arbitrator would finally call the shots. (Call it “autocratic”, but actually something else.) Not quite a papacy, because no guardianship of what the Church knows as the gifted Deposit of Faith. Instead, an arbitrator. Not entirely unlike a good monarch in the West who often came from outside of the societal factions, and could also protect the populace from the embedded experts (might we say, “clericalists”?).
SECOND, as a generic lens, are there any instructive examples in human history of this arbitration model? A model serviceable when some form of tribalism persists, or even some sort of inconclusive religious pluralism? And, unlike the unique Christian reality—or even a remnant of such in a post-Christian world, under arbitration there is no divinely-founded institution as such. And no personal accountability as with, say, the institutional papacy as the successor of Peter and the bishops as successors of the apostles…Instead, non-definitive harmonization of elements. More of a bottoms-up proceduralism (call it the synodal “style”?), too-much identified with the general populace. And, with any “hot-button themes” still lifted out by, say, “study groups,” and ultimately to be “arbitrated” by what might be perceived as an autocrat?
THIRD, outside of the Western context, such a naturalistic model of consensus and arbitration might call itself “peace.” And, might still consist of multiple sects within the whole, or the ummah, plus learned but non-ordained “experts” or the ulema or theologians, plus a final arbitrator–whose only constraint is sola Scriptura. Rather than, say, “the Word made flesh” and the sacramental Real Presence and, say, the assembled (not merely aggregated) Mystical Body of Christ. All of this as more than a figure of speech.
Going only a little bit against the grain within Islam, Muslim scholarship presents Muhammad himself as just such an arbitrator:
“The authority of the Prophet as an arbitrator was sanctioned by revelation. One finds quite a few Qur’anic verses [quoted at length] dealing with multiple kinds of takkim [arbitration] as well as showing the Prophet’s role as a hakam [arbitrator] and the scope of his takkim.” AND later, “Thus far it has been shown that Muhammad’s religious authority over other religions was restricted, but his authority as a political leader and his role as arbitrator within the Muslim community [ummah] and among the communities that populated Madinah and formed the state was wide” AND, “Such an approach, first, of consultation of the elite, and, second, of consensus of the people, dominated, theoretically at least, the life of the ummah after the Prophet’s death” (Ahmad S. Moussalli, in Said/Funk/Kadayific, editors, “Peace and Conflict Resolution in Islam: Precept and Practice,” University of America Press, 2001, with scholarly citations).
SUMMARY: Rather than “autocratic,” what would a more broadly pragmatic drift look like? A hybrid of post-Christian Freemasonry and sectarian Islam?
And, what then about the circular Synod on Synodality? (“aggregated, compiled, and synthesized” by facilitator/bishops–the Vademecum?). No longer a clearly grounded “hierarchical communion” (Lumen Gentium), and yet, clearly “not a parliament.” But, an inclusive fraternity (more or less like the ummah?), and harmonized under more or less provisional “arbitration”?
From the back bleachers, here, just wondering hypothetically. But, who am I to arbitrate?
Are we really unthinking, misreading the wielding of power within a morass of revolving structure? Or does one fail to see the Alias setup leading us to believe it’s all due to clumsy management?
Altieri digs at the heart of the matter in this multilayered Vatican scenario. While the Parolin report on McCarrick was designed to validate His Holiness, essayist Altieri acknowledges holes in the argument for and against. It’s not convincing, because of the inconsistencies, plus omissions, especially the Nuncio’s two assistants who backed him completely on the McCarrick Pope Francis expose. The old adage 50 million Frenchmen can’t be wrong has purchase regarding Viganòs character and the authenticity of the allegation against Francis. Nor does the long silence, consistent with the silence following the Dubia lend credibility.
Whether the Archbishop has careened off the rails is a judgment of another matter. What we should be concerned about is precisely the seeming inconsistency of this current pontificate on significant moral issues that are reshaping world morality and, at least, appear to be supported by His Holiness. Rupnik is not a separate issue regarding the McCarrick dossier allegation. The responses to both are too consistent. Peripheral fault finding on Church management during this pontificate doesn’t meet the archaeological test. The digging must be deeper to come to a sense of the heart of the matter.
Thanks Mr. Altieri. It seems we are experiencing a rolling catastrophe in both the church and secular spheres and who knows what it will all lead to or what we have still to endure. God has His plans and will lead us through it all, but the awfulness of what may come is sobering.
Mr. Altieri’s suggestion: “Leave aside for now the question of whether we have tyrannical rule in the Church. Let us agree that the Church is a power structure—at least that she has a divinely given hierarchical power structure—and where there is power, there is the constant threat of its abuse.”
No, let’s TAKE UP the question of whether we have tyrannical rule in the Church. Let’s NOT agree that the Church has a divinely given hierarchical POWER structure. A start towards a conversation on those issues . . .
The early Christians understandably hailed the day when their beleaguered Church acquired political acceptance under Emperor Constantine in 313 A.D. No doubt, with political acceptance, Jesus actual teachings flourished for a time, perhaps for a century or so.
Political acceptance, however, eventually grew into a political POWER that lasted through the middle ages. Catholic Christianity developed a professional bureaucracy to protect its political power. I would venture to suggest that somewhere in the midst of that new political acceptance and power, the spiritual power of Jesus’ teachings, when mixed with pragmatic necessities accompanying political power, suffered a pragmatic dilution. The blood and courage of Christian martyrs that had been the growth-seed of early Christianity was, I believe, a stronger, more Christ-centered catalyst than the new and different growth-seeds of political acceptance and political POWER.
In the aftermath of Constantinian acceptance, politics intruded into the developing structures of Christianity. The early pre-Constantinian structure of Christianity was modeled on the preaching and teaching structure of the movement that Jesus created—Jesus’ preaching and teaching hierarchy (not “power” hierarchy) comprising His twelve Apostles, with their successors coming to be known as bishops, and with His seventy-two selected disciples, with their successors coming to be known as priests.
The post-Constantinean era of Christianity, with its development of a bureaucracy model of political professionalism, added a new and, in my opinion, unfortunate ingredient into the structure of Christianity with the preaching and teaching of Jesus’ message being mixed with, diluted by, and all too often replaced by the pragmatic necessities accompanying political power.
Raymond, much common sense in what you’ve written. Throughout the 2,000+ history of the Catholic Church, the Church has never fared well by getting into bed with pagans. In fact, Christ would expect us to appeal to the pagans to get out of those beds themselves for very obvious reasons.
“I (Jesus) passed Your (Father God’s) Word on to them (the Apostles), and the world hated them, because they belong to the world no more than I belong to the world.”
Every informed Catholic Christian knows this (John 17:14) and is immunised by it against the plague of syncretism currently raging in Rome.
About the broad ubiquity of “pragmatic necessities,” yours truly refers to my comment above, and its “summary.” As a more distilled hypothesis, all of human history is strewn with various more-or-less pragmatic encrustations that don’t last…
Meaning: Apart from real life within the universal, personal, and ultimately self-disclosing LOGOS, then ENTROPY (!) intrudes as the universal solvent….And, it doesn’t matter much whether this solvent wears a Roman wreath for a thousand years–or today a Masonic necktie, or a Muslim turban, or even a few red hats.
An initial dive into this more distilled perspective might be called “A Triangular Inquiry into the Mosque, the Manger & Modernity.” Happily, such a book with this subtitle exists (2012). And, about which, here’s the link to an author interview: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2017/04/29/the-mosque-the-manger-and-modernity/
“The failure to distinguish power from the structural apparatus through which it is wielded, is one. Confusion—occasionally conflation—of current and long-standing modes of organizing and directing power with the governing power properly considered in itself, is another.”
If so it’s important to make those kinds of distinctions and avoid that confusion, can anyone help explain the above statement, which reads like Greek to me? (It sounds like he just said the same thing worded two ways, so evidently there are a lot more distinctions that need to be spelled out!)
I’m not at all familiar with the phrase “modes and orders of power” or how that is distinct from…from whatever it is that Mr. Altieri is saying that it’s so important to make distinctions about.
Any articles by Altieri or others that help explain what he’s taking about there? That would be very helpful.
Interesting …about the focus on the desire to ‘know ‘ ..Bl.Mother’s words in Fatima – ‘Russia would spread her errors ‘, yet she does not narrate what those evils were / would be ….the recent news about the rather ‘shocking’ lifestyle of those where it is least expected – the lascivious , hypocritical life of lust and lies in the Russian Orthdox hierarchy …Bl.Mother – as a person who often shares ‘secrets ‘ with her specially chosen children …The Word itself too – full of mystery and depth .. Meanwhile , we have plenty to be thankful and joyful – in the richenss of the holiness of our Lord that He shares with all who thirst and yearn for same , in the needed knowledge of how much we need it – as did the fmly of Lazarus , Mary and Martha whose Feast Day is today – thanks to Pope Francis, where as previously it was of St.Martha only ; he knows how much the families can feel atomised and alienated in these times with all sorts of evil knowledge .Instead , we are blessed to have these Families of Heaven as our own ! Bl.Emmercih mentions how the Mary in the episode of being at the feet of The Lord was not Mary Magdalene but another sister who was a simple , child like ‘ person who died young .. Magdalene had not yet converted which likely is what helped the fmly to cherish the holiness and friendship of The Lord far beyond their material wealth .. each person and persons in The Church and outide called to cherish The Truth , that God alone IS the source of all holiness and our mission to find our joy in same,its peace and dignity .. that when such is thrown away to be unworthy of The Lord , life can be a fearful maze led by false idols , under the powers of evil who come to inhabit those wounds , that those who become aware of such anywhere are to have the compassion of The Lord for such for the ardous work needed for them to be set free ..to love them with His own love that we can love ourselves too with His Love…..Blessings !
Sometimes knowledge can be a very destructive thing, like the knowledge of good and evil. Perhaps when a man knows a lot, a whole lot, and it is very dark stuff, he can become disoriented, or, to use Mr. Altier’s expression “a paranoid lunatic”. Guilt can sometimes be debilitating; sometimes the desire for expiation for his sins can push a man beyond his limits. I suspect that Mr. Altier intends to come across in this article as a very insightful, level-headed, and balanced sort of fellow. But I wonder how much Mr Christopher R. Altier really knows, and if he knew what Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò knows, he could remain as level-headed. I would like to ask Mr. Altier how many years he worked inside the Vatican? How many years was he secretary general of the Vatican City Governorate, conducting internal investigations for Pope Benedict? How many private communications has Mr. Altier had through the Vatican embassy in the US? How many conversations has Mr. Altier had with Pope Francis? Just wondering. Perhaps Mr. Altier knows a whole lot more than the schismatic Vigano, but, I have my doubts, and I doubt Mr. Altier would be as smug if, instead of just talking, he walked the walk that Vigano walked for most of his adult life as a loyal servant of the Church.
Richard Cross, you make some very compelling points. For four very long years I worked for my diocese. The things I became privy to were appalling and scandalizing so much so that when I resigned my position, I informed my bishop that I had never come closer to losing my faith than having worked for the Church.
Altieri is an honest broker journalist seeking to maintain a distance from directing fire squarely at the pontiff regarding power and its abuse. The theme picked up by most. Journalists thereby can present issues for discussion rather than appear propagandists, as are Most US media. Perhaps in this essay Altieri comes closer to implicate Francis as an abuser of power.
Insofar as abuse of power, as much as it appears simply mishandled it’s more the abuse wielded by the pontiff rather than a power structure. Indeed the anomaly is this pontificate while accruing power to himself is systematically diminishing the very purposeful authority of the Chair of Peter. Altieri’s less than direct abjuration of Francis is his frequent mention of rot. Nonetheless, we all know the standard implied rebuke voiced by many, is that the fish rots from the head down.
Altieri is an honest broker journalist seeking to maintain a distance from directing fire squarely at the pontiff regarding power and its abuse, the theme picked up by most. Journalists thereby can present issues for discussion rather than appear propagandists,as are Most US media.
Insofar as abuse of power, as much as it appears simply mishandled it’s more the abuse wielded by the pontiff rather than a power structure. Indeed the anomaly is this pontificate while accruing power to himself is systematically diminishing the very purposeful authority of the Chair of Peter. Altieri’s closest abjuration of Francis is his frequent mention of rot. Nonetheless, the standard implied rebuke voiced by many, is that the fish rots from the head down.
Excellent article, Chris!
I don’t understand the word “polyvalent” (MA in English, from a time when this meant something) so I’m going to skip this column.
Huh. it means “having a number of different forms, purposes, meanings, aspects or principles.” Seems obvious enough.
Dear Carl, maybe ‘Cleo’ had in mind the undiscerning ‘Polly-Parroting’ by far too many good Catholics of anti-Apostolic, libertarian pronouncements and behaviours and pseudo-synodal manipulations currently being prescribed by Rome?
As I recollect, valency in chemistry is the measure of a power or a disposition or a quality, to combine, or, for combining.
I wouldn’t have chosen that for the title but maybe it works on account of the number of loose ends collected in the article alongside a record of many of the “slam dunks for the other side” that keep happening everywhere (interesting high-powered game! got the best tickets in the house! from a huckster who wanted to just offload!), plus everything else that could be included by the way.
Also curious about valency, the declaration of excommunication on Vigano, as a move to help shut down a certain feeling but it is serving to intensify it. Suggesting immediately, they will regret the declaration. Combinings that were not anticipated and were not measured right or noticed even as the power/quality manifested.
Praise God who works in mysterious fashion. For all that I don’t like the particular antipathies expressed nor the “green principals” comparison nor the easy application of legal justice upon the matters whose complexities are not considered and are not known.
What good I can gather is, that there is a UNIQUE yet very unwise usage of publicity, all round. AND, maybe it was right to land this, in the nick, on this author. Bless.
Elias stop bone picking and complaining. It says “multifaceted”.
Mr. Olson above – not obvious to me. Poly I know is many. The rest doesn’t mean anything to me (obviously, or I would understand the word). When I encounter a fancy word like this in the title, it makes me think the article is going to be deliberately laborious. I did have a bit of a skim-through and wasn’t persuaded that I was wrong.
Well, I did look up polyvalent and I gather the valent part means power.
So why not use a word that the average dummy like me can understand?
They made you look it up and you did.
My problem is not that I don’t like to look up; it’s that when I look up a word, I see other words on the page that lead to other words in other parts of the dictionary, where I spend a lot of time going through all the added interest. Sometimes as I skim pages to get to the word I was first prompted to go to, I forget the word I set out looking for originally and find I have a struggle recollecting even the prompts!
And since it’s happening spontaneously mnemonics are useless. Also I find new words I wish to remember but next day can’t because I had never put them to any use. Isn’t that something though!
A very nice insight, dear E.G. Personally, it hasn’t improved with age!
Let’s take comfort in the certainty that our beloved king, Jesus Christ, knows ALL the words in every language, and discerns ALL their many meanings & implications.
Asking the precious Holy Spirit of GOD to help me recall what I’ve just forgotten has been a big help, and the word or idea pops up in my mind just a few minutes later.
Elias above – Thanks for the laugh! My brother says I have dictionaryitis (by which he means addiction, the opposite of itis, I would say). But don’t look it up. We may never see you again.
Hey Signor Altieri, I’ll take Vigano every day of the week, and Francis much less of the time….