Apologies again if it seems off topic but i think there is a link between the high theological topics we discuss here and the life of our comunities. I do not think, pace Lossky, that the filioque accounts for western clericalism and authoritarianism, and I know from experience that these faults are far from lacking in the Churches which reject the filioque. But it is for each of us to attend to our own dirty linen and not to protest against the odours coming from across the garden fence. And I do think that authority at all levels in the Church could be exercised and appreciated better if we bore in mind and understood properly the distinction I outlined above: the Church needs to function institutionally – that is part of the logic of the Incarnation – but the institution needs to be transparently at the service of the mystery. Alas, not only is it not always so but sometimes – in all Churches and ecclesial communions – it looks like the opposite is what is happening.

I have written before here about what I regard as an infantile attitude to authority in the Catholic laity in some Catholic cultures in the past. The fact is that some Catholic parents handed their children over to some extremely wicked maltreatment in the extraordinarily naïve belief that “father” could do no wrong. This is an example we should learn lessons from, however much we are in a hurry to forget the unpleasant facts of recent history. Of course, these days we have gone from infantilism to adolescence with regard to authority. Some Catholics think that they are being ever so grown up by contesting the most fundamental doctrines of the Faith; There is already reaction to this underway, but I am now afraid that some young Catholics seem nostalgic for the “good old days” between the two Vatican Councils – days which were neither so good nor so old as they seem to many.

After adolescence one usually becomes adult. I think that if Catholics were to adopt a more mature attitude to authority in our Church, it would seem less frightening to other Christians.

Among the Protestants I know, the folks who have told me about their experiences of spiritual abuse were all from the Pentecostal wing of evangelicalism. No, I take that back…there was at least one case where the spiritual abuse occurred in a non-Pentecostal fundamentalist context.

What struck me about all these cases–both the Protestant cases and the Orthodox ones–was that the spiritually abusive clergy were apparently behaving in a sort of “super-papal” manner, with a sort of sweeping, intrusive authority that went far beyond anything the real pope would ever presume to exercise. One example: A woman I know belonged to a multi-denominational parachurch “charismatic covenant community,” ruled by authoritarian “elders.” When she complained to the local Catholic priest about some of the controlling tactics employed by these “elders” via their elaborate hierarchy of “heads,” the priest exclaimed, “The bishop would never exact that kind of obedience!” IOW, the authoritarian elders were “more papal than the pope.” If that makes any sense!

Anyway….I’m not sure I agree 100% with your analysis of the reasons why some people fear the Great Papal Bogeyman yet seem quite willing to submit to their own churches’ bogeymen. I don’t necessarily disagree…I’m just not sure. I do think that centuries of anti-papal polemics have also helped to build up this irrational, exaggerated fear of papal “tyranny.” That’s certainly true, I think, in the case of those Protestant fundamentalists who are heirs of the English “No Popery” ethos.

But it’s very complex, and who knows? Anyway, for the record, I certainly did not mind your responding to my question, which was not addressed exclusively to Dr. Tighe. I always appreciate your posts!

Diane

I have never met an Orthodox who held such a belief of the papacy who wasn’t a convert from Protestantism. I think the bulk of Orthodox have a fairly healthy understanding of the role the Pope plays in the daily lives of Catholics.

As to the specific cases of personalized spiritual abuse you mention, I would point to one specific psychological factor. I don’t think they fear the Pope’s “tyranny” with respect to *you* (who voluntarily submit to his rule); I think they probably see him as a potential tyrant for *them*, i.e. one to which they have not voluntary chosen to submit but who through political or ecclesial machinations might gain control of their parish or congregation or country (e.g. Catholic Supreme Court justices, politicians, etc.). Conversely, their own spiritual abuser is not a tyrant to them (in their view) because they have chosen to submit to him.

I am not, of course, trying to suggest that their relationship to their abuser is the same as yours to the Pope. I am merely pointing out that if they thought the Pope was theologically and morally bang on, they wouldn’t see the prospect of being ruled (abused?) by him as tyranny.

I hope this makes sense.

Continuing in this off-topic vein, may I make a related point re Orthodox fear of the Great Papal Bogeyman?

I understand that the Russian Orthodox address their hierarchs as “Vladyka”–”Master”–and that some Orthodox hierarchs behave in a very Vladyka-esque manner toward their flocks. I have also been told–by Orthodox and ex-Orthodox–that the extreme reverence some Orthodox laity show their clergy and hierarchs can sometimes lead to cases of spiritual abuse. I will not go into detail, but I have heard some rather hair-raising stories from Orthodox (and ex-Orthodox) laypeople whose spiritual fathers have attempted to control every aspect of their (the laypeople’s) lives to an extent that can only be described as abusive.

Yet these same people object to the pope on the grounds that he is (they believe) a tyrant, an autocrat, an overbearing dishpot. They imagine that the pope controls us Catholic laypeople the way a puppeteer manipulates his puppets. They think we are mindless thralls of the pope, oppressed and beaten down beneath the papal yoke, and so on.

We Catholics find this laughable. We cannot imagine where people get such silly ideas. (And, of course, these silly ideas are not confined to the Orthodox; our Protestant brethren often harbor similar notions.)

But here’s the deal. We Catholics do not call our bishops “Master,” nor do we let our parish priests control every aspect of our private lives (including innocuous areas such as childrearing style). Yet the people who consider the pope a tyrant often show this sort of extreme, exaggerated deference toward their own clergy / hierarchs. IOW, they relate to their spiritual fathers the way a thrall relates to a tyrant.

I admit that my evidence is anecdotal. I concede, also, that it’s confined to convert Orthodox whom I have known over the Internet. (In Real Life I know ethnic Greek Orthodox who seem to have a much healthier attitude toward their clergy and hierarchs — an attitude much closer to the insouciance of us lay Catholics.)

But, OK, if people will accept the spiritual tyranny of an overbearing-dishpot Vladyka or spiritual father or monastic elder, why do they balk at the much LESS inrusive, much LESS micro-managerial, much LESS controlling, much LESS tyrannical authority of the pope?

(For the record, I wonder this WRT some of my Protestant friends as well. I know several folks in Real Life who have been through a veritable hell of spiritual abuse at the hands of their micro-church fundamentalist pastors. I know people whose manipulative pastor told them that, if they left that particular congregation, they’d lose the protective “cover” of the pastor’s authority and incur the punishment of terminal illness. I am not making this up. Yet these same people think the pope is s tyrant? The pope is a pussycat compared with these abusive pastors. I don’t get it. I really don’t.)

OK, end of off-topic beeble. Sorry, y’all…Dr. Tighe’s allusion to the “papal” (or perhaps super-papal?) powers of the Catholicos spurred me to ruminate on stuff that has been bewildering me for a while now.

In the late 19th Century some Assyrian Christians actually began to claim that St. Peter had gone to Babylon, rather than to Rome, and that the Assyrian patriarch was the true “successor of Peter.” This is actually highly comic, as the ancient Church of the East, after suffering several splits (and reunions) between the 1680s and the 1780s, had all united with Rome by 1805, and is known today as the Chaldean Catholic Church. The present-day “Holy Catholic Orthodox Apostolic Church of the East and of the Assyrians” originated as a “uniate” split from the Church of the East in 1553. Its successive patriarchs kept up relations with Rome until the 1590s, when its patriarchate became hereditary in the Shimun family (uncle-to-nephew). Relations were renewed in the 1660s, but these Assyrians repudiated communion with Rome in 1673, inresponse to a Roman demand that they strike Nestorius and Theodore of Mopsuestia from their calendar of saints. So the ancient “Church of the East” is now in peace and communion with Rome as the “Chaldean Catholic Church” while the present-day Assyrian Church stems from a temporary union with Rome some centuries ago.

I believe this is precisely what Pope John Paul II was getting at, in Ut Unum Sint, when he invited ecumenical reassessment of the praxis (but not the esse) of papal primacy.

Michaël, speaking for myself, I didn’t respond to Richard’s slack-jaw-inducing comment becaue I didn’t see it. But you have responded a gazillion times better than I could have, so…as Father Paul put it, more power to your pen. :-) Or, rather, to your keyboard.