On Papalotry
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There is a kind of papalotry going around. It acts as if no matter what comes out of Rome, it must have been inspired by the Holy Ghost. This line of thinking holds, for example, that if Vatican II was called, it means that the Holy Ghost wanted to call it. But this is not necessarily the case. Convoking Vatican II was a personal decision of John XXIII. He may have thought God was telling him to call it, but who knows? He has no special charism that guarantees he would recognize such a decision as coming from the Holy Ghost with theological certitude.
We can say that the Pope has the power to call a council. We can say that the authorities in the Church can call upon the Holy Spirit to guarantee, in a very narrow set of cases, that what comes from this council is de fide. (And nothing in Vatican II was pronounced de fide, Ed.)
The glory of the Church is that it has supernatural help to define truth. It has supernatural help to guarantee that its sacraments are efficacious and so on. But who said that the decision to call the council was protected by the Holy Ghost?
Let’s look at certain practical decisions of any Pope.
A Pope could command the suppression of a religious order. That happened a few centuries ago, the Pope suppressed the Jesuits. He was a little premature, I think they should have waited. This type of suppression concerns obedience, not belief.
For all practical purposes, Paul VI suppressed the Roman rite. We have no Roman rite. Pope Paul VI thought he had the liturgical power to do this. Von Hildebrande called it the greatest blunder of Paul VI’s Pontificate. So to suppress a religious order, to suppress a rite, to name a bishop is a matter of obedience, not belief, and it is not protected by the Holy Ghost.
We have 2,600 bishops (As of 2011, the Vatican said the number of bishops in the world increased to 5,065 in the Latin and Eastern churches -ED). Does that mean the Holy Ghost picked all of those? That is blasphemy, friends. Do you want to blame the Holy Ghost for Archbishop Weakland?
As already mentioned, to call a council is a practical decision of the Pope. A person may piously believe that God inspired it. But no one can say that this is an object of faith.
Also, we must not believe that whoever becomes Pope is the man God wants to be Pope. This is a play on words that “this is the will of God.”
Every theologian has always understood there are two senses to the will of God. The positive will of God and the permissive will of God.
Now, we know that God positively wants holy people in the Church ... “this is the will of God, your sanctification”. But when evil is done, this is through the permissive will of God. It is not something that God directly wills, but something that He permits when men exercise their free will.
Before any conclave which elects a Pope, the electors are supposed to pray for guidance by the Holy Spirit. Now, if they are truly men of God, and they really pray, it is to be expected that the Holy Spirit will give them the right choice. But if they’re willful, ambitious, carnal men, and they are not truly opening themselves to inspiration, an unworthy candidate of their own choosing may be the result. That doesn’t mean that the man elected ceases to be Pope. That doesn’t mean that he loses the protection of the Holy Spirit when he teaches faith and morals. But it could be that this Pope will end up to be a disaster.
Now how do I know this? Well, not because I know that any of the modern Popes have been a disaster, this is too controversial. But in Church history, there are many instances of disastrous Pontificates.
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