About Authority ....

I frequently read comments posted by that most prolific writer, Anonymous. It irritates me, probably because I disagree with them, even when their subsequent comments disagree completely with their previous one. I'm not sure what it really is that is off-putting to me, possibly that a signed criticism carries more weight than an unsigned one. The writer is putting himself on the line.

Still there are reasons, sometimes substantial ones, why individuals do not want to identify themselves. It's a lot easier to append your signature to a statement or petition where you are one of many, than it is to stand alone in speaking up. Sometimes such action may jeopardize one's future or even one's current position. That's where age gives one great freedom. If you are near retirement, you can be pushed out without fanfare. I am inclined to think of some bishops who have received a gentle (or not so gentle) nudge into their twilight. But that frees them to speak out, unlike an otherwise pastoral cardinal who endorsed the papal teaching on birth control in Humani Generis but told a priest privately "I had to say it. It was expected of me." If you are retired, there's nothing "they" can do to you. If you are a prominent and respected theologian "they" can withdraw your license to teach as a Catholic theologian, and if you are a priest you are removed from the list of episcopabile.
It's a sad commentary on authority, particularly in a "servant church", that people are controlled by fear. One need only read Paul's account of how he confronted Peter face to face to see how one should be able to confront error and injustice by church authority. Of course Peter did not have self-anointed flunkeys to question Paul's orthodoxy behind closed doors Everything was in the open and the concern was not personal power and prestige but fidelity to the Gospel.

The church today seems to function with juridical rather than pastoral authorities who deal with enquiry and dissent, not with open and reasoned discussion but with silencing and excommunication of those seeking to understand Christ's message. Only God knows man's heart and only God can judge him. Who has the right to say "You are cast out of the Christian community," or "You are going to Hell."

I frequently find myself questioning the wisdom of Benedict XVI, particularly in his choice of his curial staff and in his appointment of reactionary bishops. But he has made some outstanding statements in the past, particularly one from 1967: "Over the pope as expression of of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there stands one's own conscience which must be obeyed before all else, even if necessary against the requirements of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even the official church, also establishes a principle in opposition to increasing totalitarianism."

AMEN!