Guest
Fr. Jason Charron was ordained to the priesthood in the Ukrainian Catholic Church for the Diocese of St. Josaphat in 2008. He has served in parishes in NC, WV and PA. Currently he is pastor of Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Church, Carnegie, Pa, and as pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Wheeling, WV. He serves on the presbyteral council of the Ukrainian Catholic Diocese of Parma, Ohio.
Links
- “Greek Catholic Bishop: Synod on Synodality Is Not Like Eastern Synods” (article)
- “Archbishop Fernandez Warns Against Bishops Who Think They Can Judge ‘Doctrine of the Holy Father’” (article)
- “Is Francis the Pope?” (article)
- Fr. Charron’s Parish for donating to Ukraine relief
Transcript
Eric Sammons:
In this age of confusion, we see many competing ideas on how Catholics should understand the papacy. The most extreme forms, hyperpapalism and sedevacantism, both include an over-exaggerate since the papacy. Then, it seems like on the other extreme is synodality, which at least on paper seems to diminish the power of the papacy. Could, however, another Catholic approach to the papacy and these issues be a better way forward? That’s what we’re going to talk about today on Crisis Point.
Hello, I’m Eric Sammons, your host and editor in chief of Crisis Magazine. Before we get started, I just want to encourage people to hit that like button and subscribe to the channel, let other people know about it. Also, you can follow us on social media @CrisisMag. You can subscribe to our daily email newsletter at our website, crisismagazine.com.
We have a return guest. It is Father Jason Charron. He was ordained to the priesthood in the Ukrainian Catholic Church, the Diocese of St. Jehosaphat in 2008. He has served in parishes in North Carolina, West Virginia, Pennsylvania. He’s currently the pastor of Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Church in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and is pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Wheeling, West Virginia. He also serves on the Presbyteral Council of the Ukrainian Catholic Diocese of Parma, Ohio. Welcome back to the program, Father.
Fr. Jason Charron:
Good to be back in a time of crisis.
Eric Sammons:
Yes, that’s right. Exactly. I wanted to get you on because I saw you on the Ben Shapiro show and you were excellent, by the way. I was very impressed, especially when Shapiro was asking you about Pope Francis and the Papacy because obviously, he is not Catholic, he does not understand church politics, he does not understand church theology, so having you on there to explain it I thought was very good. I want to talk about similar topics today because there’s just so much confusion and crisis going on. Just recently we have the news Father James Altman, a very popular priest, has said that he does not believe Jorge Bergoglio is the Pope. We have Bishop Strickland potentially being asked to resign, being forced to resign for reasons that seem a bit mysterious to us all. We have the synod on synodality coming up, which at least seems to be threatening to maybe try to overturn or undermine church teaching. We’re all getting crazy.
I think a lot of this has to do with ecclesiology. One of the things that Eastern Catholics such as yourself have … it’s an ecclesiology which is faithfully Catholic, but it is different than most of us Latin Catholics assume. I wanted to really talk about that Now. To start off, why don’t you just give a little bit of your background. Did you grow up Eastern Catholic? If not, how did you become Eastern Catholic? Just a little bit about your own story as an Eastern Catholic priest.
Fr. Jason Charron:
I grew up in rural Ontario loving hockey and baseball. That was my religion, basically. I wasn’t very good at either of them but I loved them both. I had a conversion when I was around 15 or 16, and that brought me back into the practice of the faith. I was baptized when I was a kid. Then, I finished high school and I thought, “What’s the greatest thing I can do with my life for God?” That is, of course, be a priest. Go all in. I went into the seminary, loved it, had a great time up in Ogdensburg, New York, Wadhams Hall.
Eric Sammons:
Was this just a regular Latin diocesan seminary?
Fr. Jason Charron:
Yeah. While I was there, I had a spiritual director from my home diocese who was biritual. You say biritual today and people think, “What?” They think of bi-something else, but biritual means they have permission from the Vatican to celebrate two or more of the ancient liturgies of the church. He said to me, “You know Jason, your spirituality is really more akin to the Eastern churches,” and I thought, “What are you talking about? These guys are all schismatics. I’m Catholic.” He didn’t press the matter, but life went on.
I found myself a year later doing apostolic work for the summer in Ukraine of all places, teaching English to seminarians from the former Soviet Union who just came out of the underground. These people went to Siberia. Their forefathers from 1946 until 1991 went to Siberia over an ecclesiological principle, union with the Pope. They weren’t asked to deny the faith, the Eucharist and the divinity of Christ or anything like that, they were asked to go to Siberia over an ecclesiological principle. I was really impressed and fell in love with their liturgy. I was supposed to go and study in Rome and I asked for a year off to get my head and heart straightened out, and I fell in love with the Ukrainian church, met my wife there. I actually changed ritual churches and became Ukrainian Catholic. That was back in 2000.
Eric Sammons:
Then, you were ordained. How many kids do you have?
Fr. Jason Charron:
Seven. Seven kids.
Eric Sammons:
Great, same as me.
Fr. Jason Charron:
Eight years of seminary, four in the Latin Rite, four in the Byzantine Rite. That’s basic biography.
Eric Sammons:
Great. Now, I was first exposed to Eastern Catholicism about 25 years ago and one of the things that first struck me was what I guess I would call a different attitude towards the papacy. Now, some Latin Catholics might look at it as almost not respectful enough, not obedient enough or something but, as you just explained, you literally are talking about Catholics who were willing to go to Siberia because of their loyalty to the Pope. I think it’s hard to really accuse Eastern Catholics of not being loyal to the Pope when they literally are doing things like that. At the same time, it is different. It seems to me, and correct me if I’m wrong here, it is different how you approach the papacy. Could you give just an overview of the Eastern Catholic view of the papacy and maybe how it might differ a little bit from at least the attitude of most Latin Catholics towards the papacy?
Fr. Jason Charron:
It’s best understood by … anyone who’s taken a theology class in the 1980s or ’90s would know what I’m referring to when I say a high Christology and a low rising Christology out of this German school, but that is an analogous way of understanding it because historically, speaking of Christology, there are schools. I think of the Coptic tradition out of Alexandria with Athanasius of Alexandria and Cyril of Alexandria. The starting point is the divinity of Christ. Then, you get to the point of affirming his humanity. Both are firm, but the starting point is different.
The Antiochian tradition from Antioch, where Peter was first bishop before he was in Rome and from whom we have, for example, St. Ephraim and John Chrysostom before he went to Constantinople is a school that … really, their gift was identifying the humanity of Christ. You may think later on in the Latin tradition of the Sacred Heart devotions, but the humanity of Christ. Then, they arrive at completely affirming the divinity of Christ, as well.
That model is transferred to our understanding of church, as well. There’s a model of church which first affirms the papacy and then it gets to the point of affirming the legitimacy of local ecclesiastical authority. The Eastern emphasis is to first look at the successor of the apostle in the local church and his fatherhood in the local church, presiding over the local church in the Eucharistic sacrifice. Then, it radiates out from there to the metropolia of his archbishop and from there to the wider synod of bishops who are not just token members of a college but they have a collegial synodal function of making decisions together, not programmatically by some imposition from above, but organically out of time spent in prayer together. Then, from that, if something can’t be resolved at that level, then it goes up another level to the patriarch and over the patriarch. If that still cannot be resolved, then it’s resolved to our father in faith, the church that presides in love, Rome, with the Pope. Both east and west affirm the authority of the local church … Eastern Catholics, that is, affirm both the authority of the local father, the bishop, and of the father we have in Rome. The starting points are different, though.
Eric Sammons:
Now, how exactly does this then differ from … how do Eastern Catholics differ from Eastern Orthodox when it comes to this? Obviously, Eastern Orthodox are not in communion with Rome, but they have a very similar ecclesiology to what you just described. How are they different, then?
Fr. Jason Charron:
That’s a very good question. Even the Orthodox acknowledge the primacy of Peter. Now, they would say it’s a primacy of honor and they understand that to be the primacy of honor that the Council of Nicaea gave to Jerusalem as a senior rank, something that Popes might do today with an old bishop who’s a friend who’s about 90 years old, they’ll give him a red hat. It’s just an honorific. That’s what the early Council of Nicaea did for Jerusalem. There weren’t a whole lot of Christians living there, but it was the city of our Lord, so they gave it a primacy of honor without any teeth. That’s how the Orthodox tend to view the papacy today but, at the time in the fourth century, there was also a primacy of honor, they used the same word, unfortunately, the same term, but primacy of honor was also used and referred to diocese that had real jurisdiction, and that was Rome and then Constantinople.
The term “primacy of honor” can be confusing because it was used at Nicaea to refer to a place like Constantinople with real jurisdiction after Rome, and it was also used in a ceremonial sense for the bishop of Jerusalem. Today, most Orthodox would refer to the See of Peter having a ceremonial jurisdiction of honor, but the Eastern Catholics, who are in the same liturgical family as the Orthodox from … the Ukrainian Orthodox and the Ukrainian Catholic, you think of the Coptic Orthodox, the Coptic Catholic, they’re in the same liturgical family, but the Eastern Catholics would see that jurisdiction as not being simply ceremonial but having full, immediate universal authority.
Eric Sammons:
Now, as an Eastern Catholic, how do you view Vatican I and what would be I think considered the rise of ultramontanism, where you have a situation where the Pope is not just the court of last resort, so to speak, but it becomes much more of a top-down organizational structure in how it’s practiced. I guess there’s actually two questions here because there’s obviously the theology and ecclesiology of Vatican I itself, then there’s the actual practice and how it’s done. Let’s first just focus in on Vatican I itself. The universal jurisdiction, the infallibility of the Pope … is there any squeamishness, I guess, from Eastern Catholics about the language used at Vatican I or is it understood differently than you think the typical Latin would understand it? How do you guys approach that?
Fr. Jason Charron:
This is a very long, complicated bowl of spaghetti, but our approach I think is best summarized by the approach of Patriarch Maximos at the First Vatican Council, who did sign it on behalf of all of the Eastern churches in a sense, with a subscript that the Pope is infallible insofar as it doesn’t prejudice the authorities of the patriarchs of the East. I think that speaks for many of the Easterners that, in those areas of jurisdiction which do not pertain to the legitimate potestas, the legitimate power and authority, of the Eastern patriarchs, their synods and their bishops, then yes, we defer to Rome.
The idea … this is where now it gets complicated because, on the one hand, you had Benedict who said prior to being Pope that going forward in discussions with the role of papacy vis-a-vis the East, that we need to use the first millennium as a basis from which we can proceed. The idea of there being a universal jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome over the minutiae of these other Ancient Sees … it doesn’t exist in the first millennium. Then, you have internal struggles in the Latin church in the second millennium with intra, cardinals and popes, and extra, kings and the church, then you have the rise of conciliarism. You think of Constance in, I think, 1440. Then, that whole question of conciliarism explodes, which is horrendous. It’s not consistent with Catholic belief. Then, you have the Gallicanism and then you have the reaction embodied in the 1870s and the time leading up to the 1870s with ultramontanism, in which the Pope is seen as a super-bishop, that he is seen as a man who is almost like a demigod, without need of any intermediary authority between he and the people. That’s problematic. That super-ultra-maximalist view of papal authority is not consistent with the model of the early church.
It does get convoluted and I think that the healthy balance is true synodality, not the bait and switch that’s being used right now with that term in 2023, but it is an understanding of authority that comes from the bishops who are presiding in love as fathers in Christ over their flocks and they, in consultation with other bishops in the Eucharist, come to see what Christ has them affirm here and now, and that’s the authority of a bishop is to feed the flock in faith and morals by affirming that which has been handed down, adding nothing to it, subtracting nothing from it but feeding the flock with it. Papal infallibility … it’s a very narrow term and it does refer to papal encyclicals. It does not refer to apostolic letters. It does not refer to motu propria. It doesn’t refer to airplane interviews. None of those things are infallible. For Eastern Catholics most especially, those things often don’t refer to us because they’re often jurisdictional statements referring to the Latin church.
This is where we are is it’s a result of poor catechesis and people not understanding the nature of infallibility, which all bishops share in insofar as they’re in communion with Peter, but it is very narrow and it is what I would call a negative charism. It doesn’t guarantee that the Holy Father speaks precisely. It doesn’t guarantee that he speaks in a timely manner. It doesn’t guarantee that he even speaks with all the depth that’s needed. It simply guarantees by the word of Christ, the power of the Spirit, that what he says is free of theological error. That, Eastern and Western Catholics agree on.
Eric Sammons:
St. John Henry Newman of course had concerns about Vatican I and the declaration of the pope’s infallibility and universal jurisdiction, and it was mostly of a prudential nature, that it would lead to this idea of the pope almost as a demigod. If you look at what actually happened, at least I would say, in my opinion, it seems almost prophetic because you do end up having popes after this, even saintly popes, who write things of the nature of that a Catholic must agree with the opinions of the pope. He is the vicar of Christ. Even in Vatican to itself, it talks about the religious submission of mind and will to the pope that goes beyond just his infallible statements. What would be the Eastern approach to this idea that we have to follow, even agree with or at least not say anything against even the opinions of the pope or even just his encyclicals or anything that he talks about, even if it’s not covered by that, like you said, limited charism of infallibility?
Fr. Jason Charron:
I think that our point of departure on this is that of Shem and Japheth with regard to their father Noah, and not the example of Ham with regard to Noah: that he is our father in Christ and we owe him religious respect when he speaks. His voice … even if it’s not used within the context of infallibility, it nevertheless is a legitimate religious authority on matters of faith and morals, scripture, and there is a religious deference that is owed his office. That’s first and foremost.
With that said, with that conviction, we have to, I really think, be like Shem and Japheth and, I think, to the most of our ability, cover our father’s … his drunkenness and not expose it to fool and ridicule, but in private to urge him to … “Dad, we need you. We need a father. Fulfill your office,” instead of being like Ham who sees it and exposes it.
I think that, getting back to your question directly, there is respect owed to his statements. It does not mean, however, that statements which contradict natural law or divine law, which has happened historically, are to be swept under the carpet. That is to gaslight people and it’s to be sin against truth. We have a careful balancing act to respect legitimate authority but to recognize that the overarching, primary good is the salvation of souls. We hinder that universal mandate of all the baptized to help save souls by being dishonest or by giving the impression of being disingenuous. That requires that, when things are said which are untruthful that we in charity, as Canon 212 in the Latin code tells us, “Correct our father respectfully.”
Eric Sammons:
Now, I want to talk a couple specifics here. Just an example I just thought of while you’re talking of the current Holy Father saying something that might be off, and I think it ties into Eastern Orthodoxy, at least, and maybe Catholicism, is the allowance for communion for divorced and remarried people, which is a big issue, obviously, in the Catholic Church right now. John Paul II made it very clear that divorce and remarriage was not legitimate, and that you could not receive communion afterwards. Of course, this is a teaching in the church but, in the Eastern Orthodoxy, there is some allowance for divorce and remarriage. The Eastern Catholics seem to be in the middle of this somewhat. How do Eastern Catholics approach this issue about divorce, remarriage and communion?
Fr. Jason Charron:
You know what I’m going to say, Eric, sounds extremely arrogant, but I think of what … Moses is the author of the first five books of Pentateuch, and you find in there the passage that Moses was the humblest of men. Moses wrote that. Humility is truthful. I think that the Eastern Catholic churches are living the only model of sanity left in the universal church, in one sense.
What I mean by that is that you have Orthodox, who are clearly violating the teaching of the early church with regard to divorce, remarriage and communion. It was a concession to philandering Byzantine emperors that the patriarch of Constantinople didn’t have the moral courage to correct. Very much like you may think of Cranmer in England, who didn’t have the initial courage to confront Henry the Eighth like Thomas More did or John Fisher. You have now an 1,100-, 1,200-year old tradition coming out of Orthodoxy which tolerates objective evil, and they call it part of the tradition. It’s not. Just read what John Chrysostom has to say on this stuff. What I mean is that we’re the last sane island left in the ocean in one sense because we at the same time affirm the ancient teaching of the church that you cannot be divorced from your wife, attached to another woman, marry her while your real wife is still alive and then receive the body of Christ. It is not acceptable by any measure. We maintain that and the Orthodox do not.
On the other hand, when it comes to the question of … I’ve lost focus from your question, but when it comes to the issue of the role of the papacy, the Eastern Catholic churches maintain this healthy balance which avoids the maximalism that’s currently at play in the church which sees that the pure incarnation of episcopal authority and the pure incarnation of church is in the Pope of Rome, and then bishops are in lowering degrees of authority, in possession of that to the degree that they’re closer to Rome. That isn’t true, it is from their apostolic succession. The papacy is the visible sign of communion, but it is not the embodiment, the sacramental embodiment, if you could use the word like that, of true churchness. That comes by virtue of ordination to the episcopacy from which one becomes a successor to the apostle and, through that, the community, the parishes under him, are in communion with the universal church, through the Eucharist, through the profession of faith and visibly so by communion with Peter.
What’s operative in the Latin church right now is a super maximalist position which views the papacy as not being the custodian of the deposit of the faith, but rather the inventor of it, and that simply is inconsistent. We’re at home. We Eastern Catholics are at home in our own flesh, but we’re not really at home among many of the Romans and many of the Orthodox because neither really understand us.
Eric Sammons:
Would it be accurate to say when something like this happens, where Francis seems to indicate that divorced and remarried can receive communion that, as an Eastern Catholic, you look at that and you just say, “That’s unfortunate that he says that, but we’re just going to keep doing what we’ve always done, which is that something like that’s not allowed.”? Is that basically how you guys go about it?
Fr. Jason Charron:
Yes. The pope doesn’t have the authority to command us to become Protestants, for example. The pope doesn’t have the authority to command us to go against a conscience which is informed by the perennial apostolic Catholic universal teaching of the church. There had been popes in the past who have used their authority, let’s say, legitimate authority, but in an imprudent way. You can go back to Honorius, you can go back to Liberius, you can go back to John XXII and the faithful simply at that point have to follow their conscience, “the Aboriginal Christ,” as Newman referred to it.
Eric Sammons:
I think it’s interesting because Archbishop, soon to be Cardinal, Fernandez, who’s now in charge of Dicastery of the Doctrine of Faith … he recently was just interviewed and he was talking about going against the doctrine of the Holy Father. That phrase really struck me as just … I call it my Catholic Spidey-sense went off-
Fr. Jason Charron:
Me too.
Eric Sammons:
… and I immediately thought of this quote, I’m going to read it here, from Vatican I. It says … Of course, Vatican I’s supposedly the council that gave all these superpowers to the pope, but it says, “For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter, not so that they might by his revelation make known some new doctrine, but that by his assistance they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit faith transmitted by the apostles.” There is no such thing as a doctrine of the Holy Father, that’s simply … because it’s like a new thing, but you see this and, in fact, the pope himself has talked about change and evolution of doctrine. I know, in the Latin tradition, of course, St. John Henry Newman talks about development of doctrine. How do you approach that, the whole issue of … we know the pope cannot change doctrine, but what about this idea of a development of doctrine? That seems to be a pretty Latin, western way of looking at doctrine. How would an Eastern Catholic look at that issue?
Fr. Jason Charron:
Well, the Eastern churches, Orthodox and Catholic, both in theory and in praxis, recognize that there is a development in understanding. For example, you can look at the term Trinity, which doesn’t appear in scripture, and you look at the writings of the post Nicaean fathers and you compare them to the writings of let’s say the sub-apostolic fathers and there’s a clear development. Post-Nicaea and Constantinople, especially after Basil’s death in 380, Constantinople in 381, you see this real preponderance of trinitarian theology based on Father, Son, Holy Spirit. You look at the writings at the time of Irenaeus, let’s say, and obviously they’re not anti-Trinity, don’t get me wrong, but there’s more of a … I don’t want to say platonic, but there’s an emphasis on God as mind, word, breath, which are very scriptural, but there’s a development in our covenantal understanding of God’s self-revelation, and that takes 400 years. That’s in regard to trinitarian theology.
You can give many examples, also in prayer, with hesychasm. By the 11th century, 12th century, 13th century in the East, you don’t find much writing on that in the year, let’s say, 110 AD. It develops. There is room for that, but the danger is that of a bait and switch in the 21st century. When they use the word … when I say they, I speak of the modernists and the Christ haters, who will speak of a development of doctrine, but what they really mean is a change in doctrine. This is my own belief, but I think at that point, when it’s no longer a developing or a deepening of the field, going down deeper and deeper where the seed is planted, but it is a changing of the parameters, that’s no longer development of doctrine, that is what we get into when the church teaches us in the universal catechism, I think it’s paragraph 675, about a supreme religious deception which uses the instrumentality of the church and her voice in order to deliver something which is contrary to what we’ve always believed at all times.
Eric Sammons:
Now, one of the big temptations that has arisen, mostly under Pope Francis, among what I’ll call conservative Orthodox traditional Catholics, is the idea that perhaps Francis is not the pope, sedevacantism, the idea that the seat is vacant. One of the biggest arguments that’s being used, and Father James Altman just used this recently when he declared that he did not think Jorge Bergoglio was the pope, is this idea that a pope … if he is a heretic, if he becomes a heretic, if he’s a heretic before he is elected, whatever, but by being a heretic, he’s no longer in the church and therefore he is no longer pope. It’s probably a little more complex than that, but that’s the basic. Now, what would be your view and just generally the Eastern Catholic view of the idea of can the Pope be a heretic and, if he is or if he isn’t, is there a way to depose him and this whole idea that’s surrounds this sedevacantist viewpoint?
Fr. Jason Charron:
It’s very unfortunate with Father Altman and it was unfortunate the way he was treated, but it’s unfortunate the way that he’s reacted to this. I see the reaction of the sedevacantists to be akin to that of the children who disowned their alcoholic father. It is easier simply to say, “He’s not my dad,” than to acknowledge him as your dad with the shame that goes with it and the hard work that goes with restoring your father to his dignity. I think there’s a tendency to simply extricate yourself from the cross that we Catholics are on right now by saying, “It’s not real. He’s not really the pope. He’s not my father in Christ. It’s not my mess to deal with.”
I think the problem is that there’s an element of Protestantism in this in that these people usurp an authority which is not proper to them. I don’t have the authority to declare that Pope Francis isn’t the pope. That’s not my authority. It’s an exercise in vanity, vainglory and pride all shook together, pressed down and flowing over. That’s what we’re facing with this. That authority, that decision, rests with those who have bigger hats than we wear, bigger hats than what Father Altman wears. That rests with a decision of the cardinals and those whose office obliges them to resolve this issue.
Until then, I think we have to defer to the authority of the church, which obviously says that he is pope, and there’s no sin incurred by us in doing that, but we really overstepped the limits of our authority by aggregating to ourselves the voice to say that this person’s pope, this person isn’t pope. Then, everybody can be pope. You can have a guy out in Kansas named Michael who’s pope. You can have a guy up in Quebec named Gregory XVIII now, I met him once decades ago, who claims to be the pope. Why not? We have to be respectful of authority. Otherwise, everything comes apart. I don’t know if I’ve answered your question.
Eric Sammons:
No, a follow-up, though, to that is do you think there is a way that a pope can be deposed while living, or declared not to be a pope, whatever the word is, because, of course, now we’re talking about some of the dangers of conciliarism which you mentioned earlier, the idea that a council is above the pope and therefore, a council could come together, an ecumenical council, and say, “This person’s no longer the pope.” I’ve struggled with this and my own answer is, “I don’t know,” but I think there’s a lot of different options. Do you think there is a mechanism currently in the church that could legitimately depose a pope for heresy or wherever the case may be?
Fr. Jason Charron:
There is a mechanism, but then that risks opening up an equal and opposite problem. People need to go back and visit the Council of Constance in the 1400s. It was never resolved, the mess that it created. The pope who … There was an anti-pope. The bishops gathered and they asked these three competing popes just to resign and they elect a new pope. The new pope comes and then he turns on the very mechanism that got him elected, for obvious reasons, but that mechanism worked. It got the church out of a horrible situation which the Holy Roman Emperor didn’t like, the people didn’t like, nobody liked it. You had all these anti-popes, and that’s where we’re going with the sedevacantists. All of these anti-popes running around, the Council of Constance comes together and resolves it but it creates this hydra now of conciliarism.
Then, I think it was Pope Martin that is elected, then he sees it and he cuts the kneecaps off of it but since then, the church went on and dealt with all the problems of saving souls but theologically, personally, Eric, I don’t know of a case of someone who has gone back and resolved that problem, which is real, that you had a council which did depose anti-popes and one of them had to be the pope. It exists, but it’s like resorting to putting a toxin to remove a tumor on your liver. You can do it, it’s going to get rid of the tumor, but now you may have a bigger beast in your belly.
Eric Sammons:
It seems like … I think this happened in Constance, at least I think … if I remember correctly, the one that the Catholic church at least now recognizes as the true pope at the time … I can’t remember the names. I think he did agree to resign. The Avignon Pope, who we look as an anti-pope now, he refused, and then the third pope, I believe he initially refused but then he ended up agreeing. I feel like that might be … the only way it would happen would be if a council got together and said to the pope, “We’re asking you, all of us, to resign,” and then the pope actually would resign. Then, it skips through the hoops because the pope didn’t technically get deposed, he was just strongly encouraged to resign, because we know a pope can resign. I feel like that might be the only way, at least that we know of right now, because then, the council’s not above the pope, but the pope … like you said, there’s problems on each side that can arise in these situations.
Fr. Jason Charron:
There were two means to resolve situations like this. Now, there’s only one. The two means at disposal to resolve these situations were the temporal power of the emperors and the more difficult one, which is the Holy Spirit working through the sanctification of the lay faithful. Since the time of Constantine until the First World War, basically, we’ve had Christian emperors or people who at least claimed to be Christian and who exerted considerable power. They could use that power for their own aggrandizement and they often did, or they could often use it for the good of the church, forcing warring factions in the church into a room, locking them in there and not letting them out until they get their story straight and elect someone to be the pope. We don’t have the luxury of a Christian emperor to apply and leverage external pressure on the sinful men who are dealing with the human aspect of this divine institution. It doesn’t exist anymore. We’re in terra incognita. We’re in unknown land, we Catholics in the past century. There is no policemen on the schoolyard to keep wayward churchmen in line.
What’s left? This is the one that involves the heavy lifting. What’s left is not to deny the evil, don’t gaslight it, don’t say, “Hey, everything’s fine, the pope’s not teaching any error, everything’s wonderful,” the answer is that we priests and faithful, and bishops, obviously, have to be uncompromisingly committed to our baptism to really be serious about getting the Holy Spirit, having, as St. Seraphim of Sarov says, “To be in possession of the Holy Spirit,” to become saints. That is a great motivation for fathers. You’re a father. I’m a father and, when you see that your children are outdoing you, boy, that gets you in motion. “I can’t let that happen. I’m the dad.” Even if it’s pride motivating you, it doesn’t matter, it really puts you in motion. That’s what we have to do. We have to recognize that we don’t have any authority over these men in the church. You can talk about the new Cardinal-Designate Fernandez and some of the things he says. We have no authority to stop him. We have no authority for him to make up terms like “the doctrine of the Holy Father.” There’s only the doctrine of Christ. That’s it.
What we do have authority over is … well, even that is limited, is our own lives. God ultimately does, we don’t have much authority over our lives, but we can control whether we’re going to get up and say our prayers in the morning. We can determine if we’re going to speak charitably or deceptively. I think this is a long road, but it’s really ultimately the only answer, because it involves sanctification. The other answers to these questions get back to questions of jurisdiction, of external power, and that leads to frustration because 99% of the church are people who don’t have holy orders. They have no power or authority to affect an outcome in that. What can they do? They can be serious about becoming saints.
Eric Sammons:
Honestly, I think that’s a great way to end this. I’m very happy that you said that. I think that’s exactly the path forward for … if there is a cardinal listening, he can maybe do something different beyond … he should try become a saint, too. He might have actually authority to do something more but we don’t, and I think that’s important to remember. What we have authority to do is to be holy, to become a saint. Now, before I let you go, though, I want to give you an opportunity. I know you’ve been doing a lot to help Ukrainian refugees with the crisis going on over there, the war going on over there. Could you tell us just real quickly about what you’re doing and how people can help?
Fr. Jason Charron:
Well, thank you, Eric. Pray. Have masses offered for peace, for the war to end. Have masses offered, divine liturgies offered for the orphans, the widows, their souls. My wife’s hometown … yesterday, a young man was brought home. In Lviv, an orphan was brought to the church of St. Peter and Paul. No relatives were there for him. The people came out. They became his relatives to pray for the repose of his soul. First and foremost, our obligation is ordered to the kingdom of God and the salvation of souls, and that’s prayer.
Secondly is just to, if you can send in … I hate to say it, but just money. With money, they’re able to buy the food, the medical supplies that the injured need. You can send it to me, if you want. Whatever I get, I just send it straight over. I have a doctor friend who is doing everything she can to help these people, their widows, the orphans that come to herd for help and the priests that I know over there.
Our patriarch, I met with him and he has a charity called [Ukrainian], meaning Wise Works. He helps the priests because the priests … the NGOs, they’re useless. It is the church, the sisters and the priests who are on the frontline who know the families. That’s where the help is being delivered because they know the names, they know the families, they know what’s real, what’s not real. Our patriarchy in Kyiv, Sviatoslav Shevchuk of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church … he offers a lot of help. You can give them my contact and anything that I receive, I can give to my bishop, and I know he gives 100%. He doesn’t take anything off it. He gives it directly to our patriarch who gives it to where it’s needed.
Thank you. Please pray. Please don’t look at this through the language of politics and personalities, but simply through the lens of principles, of an unjust war. We don’t want people to die, we just want justice to be done, we want peace and we want this to end. In the meantime, we’re busy taking care of the thousands of orphans and the widows who grieve the loss of their loved ones.
Eric Sammons:
I’ll put a link in the show notes to being able to donate through you because I know it all … We can be confident anybody watching and listening this knows, if it goes to you, it’s not going to you, it’s going straight to people who actually are in need. I know a lot of times we get … especially with these big ones, big tragedies or crises, whatever, you know a lot of the money ends up getting wasted, so a lot of people don’t give because of that and I understand that but, in this case, we know going through you, it’s going to get to actual people that need it.
Fr. Jason Charron:
If they just put on the memo there, “Orphans Ukraine, 730 Washington Avenue, Carnegie, Pennsylvania, 15106, Father Jason Charron,” then I cash that and literally, I just MoneyGram it to people, priests and the doctor I trust. I’ve known them for 20 years, I’ve went over three times and I’ve been impressed with what they’ve done with how little they’ve received, considering all things. That’s where it goes.
Eric Sammons:
Very good, very good. Well, I’m going to let you go here, Father. I know you’re a busy man. You’ve got a lot going on. Until next time, everybody, God love you.