Crisis Afoot? Go to the Roots

When a crisis strikes, people react in many different ways, with varying degrees of fruitfulness. Some are prone to emotional outburst, an understandable but ultimately unhelpful option. Social media has made this kind of response all the more tempting, and the mudslinging that often results is on display for all to wince at. 

If impulsively sounding off—online or in person—is one of the worst ways to respond to a crisis, what is the best? Prayer, of course. In Scripture, God reminds us, “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me” (Psalm 49:15). A committed life of prayer, especially when rooted in the liturgy, is like building on a solid foundation capable of withstanding any storm. 

Divine deliverance, though assured to the earnest petitioner, is hardly automatic. More often than not, we are left to struggle in very human ways as God conforms our selves and situations to His will. Reason is a characteristic faculty of the human person and must partake in this transformation of all things in Christ. Rather than passively awaiting the renewal of mind that St. Paul mentions in his letter to the Romans, serious Christians ought to train the intellect like a muscle.

Enlightened by faith and guided by the magisterium, the reasoning pilgrim applies careful thinking to the crisis at hand, striving for clarity amid confusion. This reasonable approach is a needed antidote to reckless complaining, especially when the crisis pertains to the Church, an institution that deserves the utmost respect even when certain wayward members in it are rightly criticized.

After all, as D.C. Schindler has written elsewhere, the etymology of the word “crisis” indicates “the need for a discernment and decision, with far-reaching consequences that go down to the roots of things” (The Politics of the Real, 269). Many eminent Catholics, a mix of lay and cleric, put this advice into practice following the deposition of Bishop Joseph Strickland. Bishop Strickland, as many readers are likely aware, was unceremoniously sacked in November 2023 by Pope Francis without any canonical trial or public explanation.

While this action caused a veritable crisis for the faithful in the diocese of Tyler, Texas, it is emblematic of a larger dilemma within the Church. Many beloved shepherds are currently caught between a desire to defend orthodox doctrine and liturgy and a desire to avoid the harrowing fate of Bishop Strickland. 

Instead of impulsively posting their opinions on social media, several Catholics sat down and tried to “go down to the root of things,” penning articles and essays exploring the nature and limits of papal authority over bishops. The best of these writings have been compiled in a newly published book, Unresolved Tensions in Papal-Episcopal Relations (Os Justi Press: 2024). Some of the contributors will be familiar to tradition-loving Catholics: Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Fr. Gerald Murray, and Brian McCall. The book is edited by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (who recently spoke about it on Crisis Point) and begins with a forward by Dr. Joseph Shaw, chairman of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales and president of Una Voce International. 

Shaw explains that law, which articulates and guards ecclesial structure, is no longer the source of real power in the Church. In place of a stabilizing respect for canon law, recent decades have witnessed the disorienting “oscillation of the Catholic progressive tendency between anarchism and authoritarianism” (x). When certain members of the hierarchy want to remove uncooperative inferiors—regardless of justification—they tend to skirt canonical trials and resort to extra-legal uses of power. 

Beyond the affront to justice and transparency that this method entails, “like the One Ring in Tolkien’s epic, it tends to corrupt the user, thanks to the lack of checks, balances, and proper procedures” and is difficult to use for good (xi). From a practical perspective, the effectiveness of arbitrary power depends wholly on social pressure. This works against clerics that are vulnerable to this pressure for one reason or another, whereas those with the support of liberal elites are fortified in their disobedience. According to Shaw, the conundrum can only be repaired by a reestablishment of the rule of law in the Church and a renewal of her institutions, starting with the papacy. 

All faithful Catholics believe the pope can always exercise supreme, full, immediate, universal, and ordinary power in the Church, as stipulated by the current code of canon law. However, this statement is hardly the trump card some hyperpapalists would like it to be. Far from suggesting the pope is an absolute monarch, these five adjectives derive from earlier magisterial documents and have specific meanings. 

In his momentous contribution to Unresolved Tensions, an unnamed Dominican friar sketches out these meanings and clarifies common misunderstandings related to papal authority. For instance, the adjective “supreme” does not mean the pope can do whatever he pleases but that no one on earth can exercise authority over him. Of course, this does not preclude the authority of God, as conveyed through the natural and divine law, from superseding his directives. The pope is bound to teach and govern within the limits set by these spheres, as well as within the strictures of canon law. While acknowledging that popes can change or dispense from certain elements of this last category, the friar explains that they must do so through public legal acts. Absent this, even the pope is bound by the directive force of existing canon law.  The adjective “supreme” does not mean the pope can do whatever he pleases but that no one on earth can exercise authority over him.Tweet This

In his contribution to the book, Phillip Campbell buttresses the friar’s systematic overview of papal authority by appealing to the longstanding historical recognition that the pope has a responsibility to obey the laws of the universal Church. From the fourth-century Decretum of Gratian to St. Thomas Aquinas to the sixteenth-century Cardinal Thomas Cajetan, there is clear confirmation in the Church’s canonical tradition that the pope should obey canon law. Failure to do so constitutes an abuse of his juridical authority, which “undermines the integrity of canon law and degrades his own role as defensor legis (defender of law)” (169). As Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in 2005, “The pope is not an absolute monarch whose will is law; rather, he is the guardian of the authentic Tradition and, thereby, the premier guarantor of obedience.” 

But how does the pope’s role as the guardian of Tradition relate to the authority of bishops? Specifically, does the pope’s expansive authority include the ability to appoint, control, and dismiss bishops—such as Joseph Strickland—at will? This is where the tensions mentioned in the book’s title come into play. Many of the contributors to the anthology, such as Brian McCall, Fr. Gerald Murray, Cardinal Müller, and John Lamont, argue that the arbitrary deposition of a bishop violates either natural law, divine law, or canon law (or potentially all three) and is thus outside the scope of papal authority. José Antonio Ureta, however, vehemently disagrees. 

In a series of dueling chapters between Ureta and Lamont, the former contends that a good bishop should not ignore but obey his unjust deposition by a pope. He argues that, according to the traditional distinction between order and jurisdiction, “while the bishop receives the power to sanctify directly from Christ, he receives the jurisdictional power to teach and govern directly from the pope and only indirectly from Our Lord” (30). As a result, the pope has the authority to remove that same jurisdictional power from a bishop without just cause or canonical procedure. 

Lamont, on the other hand, admits the distinction between the power of order and the power of jurisdiction but denies that bishops receive their jurisdictional power directly from the pope rather than from Christ. He recalls a centuries-old debate on the topic, which both men agree is at the heart of the disagreement. Although the debate was originally limited to renowned theologians, it eventually exerted influence on magisterial documents in the twentieth century.

Lamont quotes the strongest proponents of both views and finally argues that the sources authoritatively bear witness to a bishop’s proper and ordinary jurisdiction over his diocese, which he possesses by divine right. By its very nature, this kind of jurisdiction can only be lost for a just reason and by legal means. In his reply, Ureta critiques Lamont’s interpretations of the sources and argues that the historical record favors his position. 

This debate comprises over a third of the book and offers a fascinating window into a little-known and incredibly relevant dispute between loyal sons of the Church. It also serves as a model for how Catholics should hash out disagreement in the midst of crisis. In spite of their disagreement, Ureta and Lamont maintain a cordial respect and never sink to the level of insults or ad hominem attacks. Instead of immediately dismissing each other’s claims as illogical or heretical, they spend considerable effort trying to honestly engage with them in pursuit of truth. Hopefully, this courteous and intellectually rigorous exchange will serve as a model for Catholic discourse over hot-button issues when the next crisis strikes.

One need not agree with all of the claims made within the pages of Unresolved Tensions to benefit from it. In fact, the contending perspectives on display within the book prevent such unanimity from being possible, at least as long as the tensions remain unresolved. Rather than oversimplifying or ignoring the crisis occasioned by the deposition of Bishop Strickland, this anthology invites the average Catholic into the process of discernment and decision needed to “go down to the roots of things”—things pertaining to the very structure of the Church Militant as she climbs toward Heaven, where the source of all authority, papal and episcopal, awaits. 

After the final chapter of Unresolved Tensions, the editor invites readers to partake in what ought to be every Catholic’s primary response to turmoil in the Church: fervent and daily prayer. What follows is a portion of the suggested petitions aimed toward the restoration of ecclesial order in our times:

Have mercy on all good bishops,
      that they may be strengthened and exalted.
Have mercy on all wicked bishops,
      that they may be converted or confounded.
Have mercy on all mediocre bishops,
      that they may be awakened and stirred into action.
Have mercy on all cardinals,
      that they may elect a worthy successor of St. Peter.
Have mercy on all the Holy Souls in Purgatory.
Have mercy on all who are most desperately in need
      of Your mercy at this very moment.
Have mercy on us and save us,
for You are gracious and love mankind,
and to You we render glory,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
now and always and forever and ever,
Amen.