In a recent Crisis piece, Dom Pius Mary Noonan, O.S. B. takes issue with Catholics who say that Francis is not truly the pope.
It’s a critical issue because Francis doesn’t seem to have much longer to live. If there is doubt about his own validity, it may cast doubt on the validity of his potential successors.
One would expect, then, that a defender of Francis’s legitimacy would look for the strongest arguments in his favor. One might also hope for a bit of originality.
Instead, Dom Noonan, who is the prior of a Benedictine community, rehashes two of the oldest and weakest arguments—first, that only the pope and the bishops are competent to judge the matter and, second, that the universal peaceful acceptance (UPA) by the Church’s hierarchy (preferably, a council of cardinals) of the election of a pope is proof that this individual is indeed the true pope.
In reality, it’s difficult to separate these two “proofs” because both are forms of the argument from authority (“we’re in charge here, so just shut up”) but it’s useful to look at them separately.
The argument about competence holds that only certain people are competent to decide whether or not Francis is a public heretic and therefore not qualified to be pope. According to Dom Noonan this means that only bishops and cardinals have the authority to make such a conclusion. A lay theologian, no matter how well-trained, would have no say in the matter. Moreover, according to Noonan, the lay theologian has no authority to publish his conclusions. Rather he should submit his writings to bishops and cardinals and leave the matter to them.
“If I were a bishop and had received this article in private correspondence”, writes Noonan, “I would have given it solemn thought and made contact with the author.” Dom Noonan must keep company with a pretty high class of bishops. My own guess is that the average bishop would crumple up the hot-potato article and file it in the nearest waste basket.
But I am just a layman and what do I know? Dom Noonan says it’s arrogant for a layman to “put forth as the truth a conclusion that is opposed by the Universal praxis of the episcopate “(which is another way of saying “universal peaceful acceptance.”) This universal peaceful acceptance is expressed, says Noonan, when “every diocesan bishop in the world names Francis in the Canon of the Mass and therefore acknowledges him to be the pope.”
As I say, the Universal Peaceful Acceptance argument seems like a slender reed on which to hang the legitimacy of a pope. Is the acknowledgment of the pope given freely or is it rooted in a fearful don’t-rock-the-boat attitude? The universal practice of courtroom lawyers is to address the judge as “your honor” even though the lawyer may doubt that the judge is an honorable person. But a hearing or trial is not the right time or place to express one’s doubts.
Courtroom protocol also gives us some insight into the business of who is competent to make decision and arrive at conclusions, and who is not. In some trials, the final decision is up to the judge, in other trials it’s up to the jury. But in both cases, the competency to make a judgment comes from the office one holds—either the office of the judge or juror.
Take the O.J. Simpson trial. Few would say that the jurors were chosen for their knowledge of the law or for their impartiality. In fact, 8 of the 12 jurors were black and at that time it was widely believed that the majority of the jurors were already strongly biased in favor of Simpson because of his popularity as a sports star and movie star. Moreover, several of the jurors later admitted they had trouble understanding the complicated DNA evidence and chose to ignore it.
The jurors found Simpson not guilty of murder. I thought at the time (and still do) that he was guilty. But, as Dom Noonan might point out, I wasn’t competent to decide. I wasn’t the judge and I wasn’t a member of the jury. My opinions were entirely irrelevant.
But I’m pretty sure that I was right and the jury was wrong.
One of the irritating things about reading Dom Noonan’s article is to be told over and over that you’re not competent to make decisions and arrive at conclusions. The problem is it’s not always clear whether he’s talking about competence in the sense of holding an office that confers authority or in the sense of possessing special knowledge and abilities.
One gets the impression that he thinks ordinary people can’t make the distinction. He keeps stating and restating the obvious fact that people without authority don’t have the authority to make their conclusions binding on others. But most people have no trouble grasping this simple tautology. It’s common sense that cardinals have more power than laypersons in regard to dealing with a rogue pope. The problem is that they have been reluctant to exercise what power they have.
Nevertheless, Noonan manages to put this inaction in the best possible light. “Men of the Church”, he says, “often bide their time knowing that one can easily complicate a matter by speaking out too quickly.”
But speaking out too quickly is the last thing most bishops and cardinals have to fear. They’ve had twelve years to speak out about the abuses of Francis, yet the vast majority have remained as silent as a stone. Are they worried about complicating the matter as Dom Noonan says or are they worried about complicating their own lives?
Noonan speaks highly of the prudence of the hierarchy. But what if he mistakes prudence for cowardice? What if Churchmen are biding their time in the hope that they can retire before their crimes are exposed? What if they keep silent not because they fear causing a schism, but because they fear blackmail or jail?
Meanwhile, as Noonan touts the hierarchy’s talent for not rocking the boat, it seems that they are developing other competencies as well. Chief among these is a talent for evading responsibility. Church leaders continue to cover-up sex abuse by priests, continue to use dwindling diocesan funds to pay victims, continue to squander Church money on reckless investments in real estate, and continue to confuse ordinary Catholics about Church teachings.
Most recently, prominent lay Catholics have called upon Vice President Vance to investigate the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) under the RICO racketeering act. The charge is that the bishops have misused federal funds from USAID to facilitate illegal immigration and possibly to enable sex-trafficking and drug-trafficking by Mexican cartels. Undoubtedly, Dom Noonan will question whether the US government has the competency to investigate bishops. Perhaps, the cardinals should be put in charge.
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