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Power, Politics, and Faith
While many seek power and political influence in the Church, it is faith and grace that will change the world.

Two new documents issued by magisterial bodies of the Catholic Church in the past two months caused much debate and controversy over the issue of power in the Church, who has it, and who’s jockeying to get it. The two documents are the English translation of the new General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) and the document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith called Dominus Jesus.

The first document offered revisions and clarifications regarding how we celebrate the Mass (see Father Jerry Pokorsky’s in-depth review in this issue). As various media reported on it, some observers proclaimed victory for those who have tried over the years to enact their own individual changes to the Mass, since the Vatican had not offered the changes they wanted in the first place. One news story claimed the Church had decided, once and for all, that the priest should celebrate Mass facing the people, when it is not at all clear she had done so. Other changes were similarly claimed as true when they were not.

The other document to cause controversy was Dominus Jesus, which is discussed in this month’s World Watch section. This document solemnly and joyfully proclaims that Jesus is the sole source of salvation, and that salvation comes to the world only through the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, even though one need not be a visible member of the Church. The protests came from both inside and outside the Church. Some Catholics said the document set the ecumenical movement back decades by denigrating the importance of other Christian communities, while some non-Catholics complained the Catholic Church set herself up as the source of truth and excluded their legitimacy. Meanwhile, secular news reports —and even some Catholic press stories —placed the document in the context of a political power play by doctrinal conservatives at the Vatican trying to reassert themselves before the election of a new pope, making it difficult for that future pope to backtrack on the ordination of women or concessions to non-Catholics.

Of course, this could not be less true. What we have been given is a restatement of basic Catholic belief, something that any truth-seeker can find in the Catechism. If the Catholic Church is not the continual flowering of the seed Christ planted among the apostles, if it is not the work of the Holy Spirit in the world, then why be Catholic? Find the church that is that work.

What the complaints about these documents share is a profoundly secular outlook on the Church. A recent article in the New York Times surveyed priests of the immediate post-Vatican II generation who moaned that their successors, the latest generation of priests, are more concerned with sacraments than with social action. The subtext is that it is by political power, not grace, that man is saved and the world changed.

A similar outlook is found in the complaints at the beatification of Pope Pius IX. Critics fault Blessed Pius for the kidnapping of a Jewish child, the declaration of the doctrine of papal infallibility, the defense of the Papal States against Italian nationalists, and more. But rather than addressing the complaints—Pius IX can be defended on each of these points when they are placed within their contexts—Pope John Paul II instead declared that Pius was honored because of his life of heroic virtue. Again, not politics, but grace.

Even now, every time many media outlets speak of the Pope, they focus on his frailties, his “conservatism,” and his eventual replacement. For years we have heard that the Pope is near death, has only a few years to live, or should resign because of his ill health. Yet anyone who saw the coverage of World Youth Day on television, or were there themselves, can testify to the strength, joy, and vigor of the man. Yes, the Pope is elderly, but he is not planning to retire to his death bed. Instead he is embracing both the Cross and Resurrection.

Of course, unless one watched EWTN’s television coverage or read the various Catholic Internet news services, one would not have known what was happening in Rome during World Youth Day, or perhaps might have thought it was just another music festival of a few thousand kids, a “Pope-a-palooza” as one wag put it. It was generally ignored as just another attempt to indoctrinate youths whose own beliefs demonstrably differ from Church teachings.

Instead the gathering was an unprecedented pilgrimage unlike any in history, one which reinvigorated the faith of millions. Past youth gatherings have shown how the youth, almost instinctively, recognize the Holy Father’s personal holiness, hear his call to deeper conversion, and seek to live it. In this Jubilee Year, that result was magnified. This is our future hope.

Those who seek power always cast their view of the world in terms of power, whether it is government power or power in the Church. And while politics and political maneuvering are a reality, not everything needs to be cast in their light. As faith in Christ grows, faith in politics should decrease. The Church does not canonize the powerful; she canonizes the holy.

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