Our cover story this month is “Love for the Pope”, referring principally to our article from the American theologian Sherif Girgis clarifying – as if it really needs clarifying – that Pope Francis is not changing, nor could he change, Church teaching on the immorality of contraception. In the aftermath of a certain amount of confusion regarding Amoris Laetitia there has been much debate about what is going on here. Debate and clarification are fine of course, but unfortunately it is increasingly common to hear or read comments from Catholics which refer to the Pope with diffidence and sometimes, sadly in ways bordering on derogatory. In spreading their own “little faith” in this way, those blogging Catholics are doing something gravely harmful to the Church. Recently Pope Francis himself reminded the Church that “The devil has two very powerful weapons to destroy the Church: divisions and money” (Santa Marta chapel, Sept. 11, 2016).
I thought it might be helpful to recall the teaching and example of St Josemaria Escriva regarding the relationship which holds between the Roman Pontiff and the Catholic faithful. He speaks of the love which Catholics should have for the Pope with crystalline clarity, moved perhaps by the post-conciliar confusion in this regard: he lived through the early years of the post-conciliar crisis and its rebellious rejection of the authority of the papacy, both from the liberal wing as well as from the schismatic Lefebvrist movement.
St Josemaria’s characterises the relationship between the Catholic faithful and their Holy Father as above all a relationship of love, and only secondly one of obedience or submission. Quite often he speaks of a hierarchy of what he terms “the three loves” of a Catholic: firstly God, secondly the Blessed Virgin Mary and thirdly the Pope. For instance in Forge he writes: “Your deepest love, your greatest esteem, your most heartfelt veneration, your most complete obedience and your warmest affection have also to be shown towards the Vicar of Christ on earth, towards the Pope. We Catholics should consider that after God and the most Blessed Virgin, our Mother, the Holy Father comes next in the hierarchy of love and authority” (Forge, 135. Italics mine throughout).
For him the devotion of the faithful to the Holy Father must be warm-hearted and affectionate, not servile or simply obeisant. He asks us to have “real affection” for the Pope: “May the daily consideration of the heavy burden which weighs on the Pope and the bishops move you to venerate and love them with real affection, and to help them with your prayers” (Forge, 136). And indeed such affection characterised his own love for the Holy Father, as observed by the Prelate of Opus Dei, Bishop Javier Echevarría, who lived alongside St Josemaria for many years:
His joy when he was actually in the Pope’s presence was immense. I could see that whenever I went with him to an audience with the Pope…. Msgr. Escriva used to ask us to pray very hard for the Pope and love him very much, and show him our affection, because we ought always to see the Pope as the successor of Saint Peter, il dolce Cristo in terra, the “sweet Christ on earth”…. I very soon saw how continually Saint Josemaría renewed the offering of his life for the Pope, in readiness to give his life at any moment, with the grace of God…. He was made deeply happy by whatever made the Pope happy, and he likewise suffered when the Pope was suffering (Echevarría, Javier & Bernal, Salvador, Memoria del Beato Josemaría Escrivá (hereafter MBJE)).
His devotion to the Pope was truly filial and in no way reduced to a servile obedience or submission. He frequently used expressions like “the common Father” or “the house of the common Father” to refer to the Pope or the Apostolic See.
St Josemaria recommended that Catholics should accept the Pope’s words with an acceptance which is “religious, humble, internal and effective” (Forge, 133), in other words, acceptance of the Pope’s teaching cannot be restricted to those matters which have been solemnly defined in some way or other. In this of course he was not recommending anything new but echoing Church teaching regarding the “religious assent” due to the Magisterium of the Church. The Second Vatican Council’s Lumen Gentium 25a teaches, for instance, that, “In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra”. The same passage of Lumen Gentium points out that the mind and will of the Pope “may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.”
The attitude of the founder of Opus Dei with regard to the Pope was marked by a profound humility, as Bishop Echevarría notes: “… when he was in the presence of the Holy Father he was genuinely moved, and he never tried to hide or to overcome that sensation. And he was also delighted when he got permission for me, as secretary, to go and greet the Pope, the Successor of Peter. He always told me the same thing: ‘Fall on your knees, and make the most of those moments to show your love and veneration, and to increase your prayer for and union with the Pope, the Vicar of Christ.’”
Furthermore he desired that this religious, humble and internal acceptance of the Pope’s teaching would not end there, but that it would bear fruit in action: “Faithfulness to the Pope includes a clear and definite duty: that of knowing his thought, which he tells us in Encyclicals or other documents. We have to do our part to help all Catholics pay attention to the teaching of the Holy Father, and bring their everyday behaviour into line with it.” (Forge 633).
This striking devotion of St Josemaria to the figure of the Roman Pontiff is based on sound theology rather than sentiment. While he was personally acquainted with Pope Pius XII, Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI, all of whom held the founder of Opus Dei in very high regard, he always asserted that the faithful should love the Pope, whoever he may be, “with a love that should be always more theological” (Furrow, 353). The Pope he says, “is the foundation stone of the Church and, throughout the centuries, right to the end of time, he carries out among men that task of sanctifying and governing which Jesus entrusted to Peter” (Forge, 134). He was in no doubt as to the importance of the papacy; without the Pope we lose the Church, and without the Church we lose salvation: “… for where Peter and the Church are, there Christ is; and he is salvation, the only way”. And he quotes some words of Saint Ambrose to this effect: “Where Peter is, there is the Church; and where the Church is, not death, but eternal life reigns.” For where Peter and the Church are, there Christ is; and he is salvation, the only way” (Homily Loyalty to the Church, given on June 4, 1972).
With his deeply theological understanding of the role of the successor of St Peter, St Josemaria was convinced that the greater his union with Christ’s Vicar on earth, the greater would be his union with God. In the words of Bishop Echevarría:
He would repeat, with absolute conviction, the words of Psalm 35:10, Apud te est fons vitae et in lumine tuo videbimus lumen! (In you is the source of life and in your light we see light). He used this to increase his unity with Christ’s Vicar on earth. He always firmly believed that his union with the Blessed Trinity would grow still closer, the closer he was united in mind and will to the Pope and his intentions (MBJE).
He spoke lovingly of the Church’s prerogatives of unity, holiness and apostolic succession but pointed out that these marks rise or fall on our union with the Roman Pontiff:
… the Church is one, with a clear and perfect unity of the whole world and all nations, with that unity of which the principle, root, and indefectible origin is the supreme authority and most excellent primacy of blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, and his successors in the Roman See. And there is no other Catholic Church, but that one which, built on the one Peter, rises up on the unity of the faith and on charity in one unique body, joined together and compact (Homily Loyalty to the Church, given on June 4, 1972).
Finally, to return to the anxieties regarding the doctrinal orthodoxy of some ambiguous passages in Amoris Laetitia, or casual off-the-cuff remarks made in interviews, such things should not put the least dent in our filial devotion to the Holy Father, nor to in anyway lead us to restrict our adherence to “solemn teaching”. Such an approach is not truly Catholic as St Josemaria so clearly shows, and in the long run is a dangerous posture to adopt. Prayer and trust in God’s providence will lead us to redouble our filial union with the Pope. Returning to the words of St Josemaria:
We help to make that apostolic continuity more evident in the eyes of all men by demonstrating with exquisite fidelity our union with the Pope, which is union with Peter. Love for the Roman Pontiff must be in us a delightful passion, for in him we see Christ. If we deal with the Lord in prayer, we will go forward with a clear gaze that will permit us to perceive the action of the Holy Spirit, even in the face of events we do not understand or which produce sighs or sorrow (Ibid).