I
have been the pastor of two parishes which have as their patron saint a bishop
who was slaughtered by knights in shining armor. St. Thomas Becket was
one such bishop. He was a pliable friend of King Henry II of England. Thomas
was in Holy Orders, a deacon I think, so the newly crowned king decided to
appoint his old friend Thomas to be the leading bishop of the realm. No sooner
than ordained, Thomas started being difficult. He zealously guarded the right
of the church to try misbehaving clerics. He thought it a vital principle for
guarding freedom of religion. He was hounded out of the country, and when he
returned he was killed by a few of the king’s knights, with or without the
collusion of the king. No one is quite sure.
St. Lambert has
a similar story. Lambert was a monk of
an impeccably aristocratic background. Around 700 AD he was appointed bishop of
Maastricht and Liege by Prince Pepin of Herstal. He promptly became less
pliable and denounced Pepin’s carrying on with his mistress Alpaida. (You’ve
got to love the names) Again, the retainers of Prince Pepin murder Lambert.
In all of this you must be thinking, doesn’t
the pope appoint bishops? Actually, he doesn’t. He usually approves candidates
put forward by the local church. Until very recently the local powers had a lot
to do with appointing bishops and even popes. Until modern times, the powerful
have always interfered with the election of popes. The emperors of
Constantinople had to approve the election of the Bishop of Rome by the clergy
and people of that city until the 800’s. In 1059, Pope Nicholas II decided that
only the pastors of the main churches in Rome (the cardinals) would elect the
Bishop of Rome, because the whole thing was getting out of hand, riots,
politics and all. The man elected still had to have the approval of the priests
and people of Rome.
In
1139, the need for popular approval was dropped and the pastors would elect the
pope, the Bishop of Rome. In 1274, it was decided that the cardinals would be
locked up (conclave, meaning “with a key” or “lock down”) to reduce the chaos,
politics and rioting in the streets. But they couldn’t keep out the powerful
completely. Catholic kings had rights of election and claimed a veto over papal
elections. Each king had a cardinal, who could apply the royal veto during a
papal conclave. The last time the royal veto was us used was in 1903, when
Austria opposed the election of Cardinal Rampolla, so the conclave elected
Cardinal Sarto who ended up as St. Pope Pius X. Six months later Pius ended the
practice.
Governments
have always tried to control the elections of popes and bishops because the
Gospel of Christ is the only thing more powerful than the state. Governments
hate when their subjects have a higher loyalty than the loyalty rendered to the
state. So, the power of governments over episcopal and papal appointments ended
in 1903? Hardly! Francisco Franco, the Caudillo of Spain claimed the patronato real, the
privilege of Spanish kings to name bishops and veto appointments from bishops
all the way down to the parish priest. This only ended in 1973. Today the
Chinese government claims the same exact privilege. At least this abuse has
ended everywhere but China. Don’t count on it. We have a new kind of
government. You may think that much of the world has adopted government by the
people of the people and for the people. Nonsense!
We
are governed by news agencies and talk show hosts. The constant flow of
information and opinion that we carry around in our pockets on our no-so-smart
phones tells us what to think, of whom to approve and for whom to vote. It
tells us how many genders there are and how to define marriage and which
children have the right to live and which children and old people should die.
This same info-government tells us that priests who defy Catholic tradition
regarding marriage and preference are heroic and those who hold to the Gospel
preached these two thousand years are narrow-minded, fundamentalists and Pharisees.
The yammering classes can hound any bishop or priest out of his pulpit, so we
try to combat the whole usurpation of the freedom of the Gospel by beating them
at their own game.
And
so, somebody at the Vatican has just hire a company called Accenture to design
and manage the Holy See's new internet news service. The have asked the fox to
completely redesign the hen house. The company in question, Accenture, is
famous throughout the world for promoting a political and moral agenda
diametrically opposed to Catholic moral teaching. So, the new rulers of the
world have just been given a veto power to elect and depose popes and bishops
and priests just as governments have always wanted.
When
the Sadducees were asked, “Shall I crucify your king?” they shouted, “We have
no king but Caesar.” I guess we are
there in the crowd with them. We have no king but the media. God help us.
Rev.
Know-it-all
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