Monthly Archives: February 2013

Choosing the Next Pope

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Who will emerge from the next conclave? Continue reading →

In a short while pope #266 will be chosen. Who will it be? I have no idea, but I do know a few things about the way that he will be chosen.

The group that chooses the pope is known as the “Sacred College of Cardinals.” At one time the cardinals served as the link between the pope, who is the Bishop of Rome, and the suburbicarian dioceses of the surrounding countryside. In those days there were only a handful of cardinals, and their primary job was to meet with the pope and then return to the hinterlands to explain his policies to the people there. After the Roman Empire virtually abandoned Italy in the fourth century, the pope was forced to take on many civil responsibilities. From 800 through 1870 the pope was universally recognized as the monarch of a strip of central Italy that stretched from coast to coast. The number of cardinals increased, but they still served as advisers and legates.

There is, in fact, no limit on the number of cardinals, and there are no guidelines (that I know of) for the qualifications. All (or at least nearly all) of the current cardinals are bishops. That is a relatively recent development. In the nineteenth century, for example, Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli served as Secretary of State for Pope Pius IX, and he never even became a priest. One cardinal, a Portuguese prince, was only seven-years old when he received his red hat. He probably had to grow into it.

Nowadays, “cardinal” is considered a rank that allows the recipient to wear a variety of red garments and to vote for the pope. When a cardinal reaches the age of eighty, however, although he is still allowed to wear red, he can no longer vote for the pope. So, Pope Benedict will have absolutely no say in choosing his successor.

Well, I should probably amend that last statement to say that he will have no direct say in choosing his successor. Of the 117 electors, 67 were appointed by Pope Benedict. All of the others were appointed by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. Since these two popes had remarkably similar ideas on how the Church should be managed, it seems inevitable that the next pope will not favor radically different notions.

The cardinals have been choosing the pope for about half of the history of the Church. That policy was implemented in 1059 by Pope Nicholas II. Perhaps the most surprising fact about the history of the papacy is that prior to 1059 there was no established method for selecting the pontiff! Some popes were elected by the Roman citizens, some were elected by the clergy, some were appointed by kings or emperors, and there is no record at all as to how quite a few assumed the office. It was not uncommon for more than one man to claim the papacy, and the matter was occasionally settled violently.

For centuries the papal election took place in whatever city the pope had perished. The electors now always meet in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican to choose the new pontiff. This process is called a conclave, which means “with a key.” The cardinals and a few attendants (Pope Pius XII’s attendants were nuns!) are locked in until they come to agreement. In the past this process has sometimes taken years! The longest one was held in Viterbo, starting in 1268. In 1271 the cardinals finally chose a man (not a priest) who at the time was taking part in the ill-fated Seventh Crusade, but not until after the impatient residents of Viterbo had hired carpenters to remove the roof of the room in which the cardinals had been locked.

All who participate in the conclave are sworn to secrecy. There is no official record of any of the votes or of the process by which the decisions are made. The official explanation is that the electors make themselves open to the Holy Ghost, and the third person of the Trinity inspires them to choose the best man. Some information, however, inevitably leaks out from one source or another. A Jesuit priest named Malachi Martin was a Vatican insider for several twentieth-century conclaves. He claimed that Cardinal Siri was elected pope at two different conclaves. Circumstances allegedly forced him to turn down the office on both occasions.

The essential requirements for being pope are remarkably simple. Each papabile must be a male Catholic, but not necessarily a priest. Many popes were not ordained as priests until after they were elected, and one, Adrian V, never did become one. Incidentally, this certainly qualifies as one of the most inexplicable piece of papal trivia. The pope is, by definition, the Bishop of Rome. Every bishop must be a priest. Therefore, most people would conclude that every pope had been a priest. The lesson to take home is that when it comes to the papacy there is an exception to almost every rule, even the tautologies.

There is no age requirement for the papacy. Pope John XII was a teenager when he was elected in the tenth century. His father made the arrangements (by paying off Roman nobility) for his ascendancy on his deathbed. Pope Benedict IX was also very young at his coronation (yes, the Pope until recently wore a crown called the “tiara”). One monk reported that this Benedict was only ten-years old, but historians today think that he was at least twice that.

I don’t expect the current College of Cardinals to choose another teenager. John XII was evidently murdered by a jealous husband who found him in bed with his wife. Benedict IX, who was accused of equally deplorable shenanigans, was driven from the papacy, regained it, and then sold the office to his godfather so that he could get married. After being jilted by his intended spouse, he eventually regained the throne once more, but he was finally overthrown in a second coup in 1048.

I guarantee that the new pope will not be a woman. The legend of Pope Joan is not taken seriously by any historians.

I doubt that the pope will be married, but it is possible. According to the Bible St. Peter, the first pope, had a wife. Not only was Pope Adrian II (867-872) married, but he lived with his wife after he became pope! A few other popes may have also been married. Many popes fathered children before they assumed the office. Pope Alexander VI had at least eight offspring whom he recognized, and he continued his promiscuous lifestyle as pope, although he traded in his long-time mistress for a newer model. His predecessor, Pope Innocent VIII, may have had twice that many kids. Life was different in fifteenth-century Rome.

The new pope will choose his own name. This tradition was started by the above-mentioned John XII, whose real name was Octavian. Prior to that time popes continued to use their given names. We will get some indication as to the pope’s intentions by his choice. If he chooses Pius, Gregory, or Paul, you can expect him to continue the conservative bent of the last few decades. If he chooses some other name, he may be making some other kind of statement. Benedict XVI, for example, chose his name as a tribute to the two previous Benedicts, who were intellectuals, Benedict XV during World War I and Benedict XIV in the eighteenth century.

No one has ever chosen the name Peter. That would be a striking statement that the new pontiff intended to return the Church to its roots. Don’t hold your breath.

Papal Resignations

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Very few popes have ever resigned. Continue reading →

Pope Benedict XVI announced today that he will resign at the end of the month. This is indeed big news because very few of the 263 popes have resigned, and almost every one of those occasions was very controversial.

I have already encountered quite a bit of misleading and outright erroneous information concerning papal resignations. For example, the New York Times website quoted Donald Prudlo, associate professor of history at Jacksonville (AL) State University:

At the end of the 13th century, a very holy hermit named Peter was elected as Pope Celestine V in order to break a deadlock in the conclave that had lasted nearly three years. He was elected because of his personal holiness, sort of a unity candidate. And once he got there, being a hermit, not used to the ways of the Roman Curia, he found himself somewhat unsuited to the task, that it wasn’t just holiness but also some shrewdness and prudence that was also required. So within six months he knew that he was really unequal to the task, and so he gathered the cardinals together in a consistory, just as was recently done, a couple hours ago, and he announced to the cardinals his intention to resign.

Well, he got the time period right. God only knows why the cardinals selected this recluse in the first place. Living alone in a cave in the mountains, the man had eschewed human contact entirely for decades. A letter signed by the hermit had been sent to the conclave. It warned the cardinals that God would wreak vengeance on them and all Christianity if they did not forthwith select a new pope. The cardinals reportedly were so impressed with him that they set aside their previously irreconcilable political differences and endorsed Peter. That is the official account, but anyone who has studied the conclaves of that era would detect the odor of fish. Cardinals are not allowed to disclose the details of conclaves. So, no one can contest the official version.

To me the most annoying aspect of Professor’s Prudlo’s quote is the phrase “once he got there.” “There” must, of course, be Rome, of which the pontiff is by definition the bishop. However, Pope Celestine never once set foot in the Eternal City. Instead, King Charles II of Naples, who may well have been responsible for the letter, convinced His Holiness to take up residence in Castel Nuovo in his capital. Celestine was a total disaster as pope, probably the most incompetent and irresponsible pontiff ever, which is saying something. He kept no records and even bestowed the same benefice (income-generating office) on more than one person. At the instigation of the king, who was French, he appointed a large number of cardinals, most of whom were also French. Celestine never “announced to the cardinals his intention to resign.” Rather, Cardinal Benedict Caetani, drew up a letter of resignation and somehow induced the pontiff to sign it.

That is not the end of the story. Caetani was then swiftly elected as Pope Boniface VIII, and for no specific reason he cast the former pope in prison, which is where he died. I wrote about this episode here.

Very little is known of the popes of the first few centuries. The story has come down that Pope Pontian, who was exiled to the salt mines of Sardinia, might have resigned so that someone else could serve as the Bishop of Rome (whom no one thought of as the pope at the time). He might have done so, but then again some of his predecessors might also have hung up their miters. In fact, Clement I, the fourth pope, wrote in some of his letters that St. Peter himself had consecrated him (Clement) as Bishop of Rome. If so, then the first pope to resign must have been the very first pope, St. Peter!

The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII in 1415. What a story that was! At the time there were three claimants to the papal throne, and all three arguably had legitimate cases. One of them, John XXIII (no, not that John XXIII) called a council in Constance, a city next to a very deep lake in southern Germany, in order to resolve the situation. He badly misjudged the politics, however, and the council put him on trial for five felonies, deposed him, and threw him in prison. A second claimant, Benedict XIII, had been holed up in a corner of Spain for some time. He refused to come to the council and was also eventually deposed.

Pope Gregory also rejected the council’s summons. However, after the other two claimants had been deposed, he sent a letter through an emissary in which he expressed his willingness to resign. It is worth noting that he died before the council could agree on his successor, Pope Martin V. So, assuming that Pope Benedict lives to see his successor chosen, it will be the first time since the thirteenth century that the Church will have both a pope and a living ex-pope.

Did you notice anything strange in the above paragraph? Martin V was chosen, not by the college of cardinals but by the council, which included many clergy of much lower rank and was heavily influenced by Emperor Sigismund. The problem was that during the Western Schism, which had gone on for decades, there had been multiple papal claimants each supported by influential spiritual and civil leaders. Each pontiff had appointed cardinals loyal to him and had excommunicated those appointed by rivals. So, it was easier for everyone at Constance just to ignore canon law for a while. Hundreds of those who refused to go along found their way to the bottom of the lake. The surviving cardinals were reinstated, regardless of who had appointed them. What else could they do? Pope Martin himself had been appointed by the deposed and disgraced John XXIII.

I wrote about the Council of Constance here.

I cannot leave this subject without bringing up the one pope who certainly resigned of his own accord. Here is what Professor Prudlo had to say about Pope Benedict IX:

And then, at a rather low point in the Church’s history, Pope Benedict IX, in the 1040s, resigned and attempted to re-acquire the papacy several times. But according to good reports, he too died in penance at the monastery of Grottaferrata outside of Rome.

In point of fact, no one disputes the fact that Pope Benedict IX sold the papacy to his godfather, John Gratian, who became Pope Gregory VI. At the time Benedict had been pontiff for more than a decade, but he was still a young man, and he wanted to get married. However, his prospective father-in-law would only approve if Benedict abdicated. Yes, some popes have been married, but no pope that we know of ever got married while he was pontiff.

After Gregory had been deposed by the emperor, a jilted Benedict managed to acquire the papacy again for a short while. The “good reports” that he retired to Grottaferrata really amount to the word of one monk. Via e-mail I personally asked Santo Lucà, a professor at La Sapienza who is probably the world’s expert on the history of Grottaferrata, whether he thought that the pope had retired there. His answer: “Assolutamente no!”

* * *
So why have so few popes resigned? The primary answer is that from 800 until 1870 the pope was the monarch of central Italy. Most of the popes of that period amassed great amounts of wealth and spread it among family members. They did not resign for the same reason that very few kings and queens have abdicated — they knew that they had the best gig in town. Furthermore, unlike kings and queens, the popes had very limited control over their successors. In many cases the successor had little respect for the work of the predecessor, and the popes knew that. The best way for a pope to protect his historical legacy was to stretch it out as long as possible. When the duties became too much for an aging pontiff, he customarily assigned the most important tasks to a relative, usually a nephew.

Since 1870 the popes have been too busy to resign. Pius IX devoted himself to overthrowing the Italian (and to an extent American) government in order to reclaim his territory. Leo XIII was busy with his poetry, his snuff, his movies, and his cocaine-laced wine. Pius X fought against modernism. Benedict XV fought for peace. Pius XI and Pius XII had to confront the Nazis, the fascists, and the communists. John XXIII (yes, that John XXIII) tried to drag the Church into the twentieth century. Paul VI tried to smooth the feathers that had been ruffled by his predecessor. John Paul I only lasted a month. John Paul II worked to destroy communism and to restore conservative traditions.

Only Benedict XVI had no clear mission. It is a little-known fact that he had asked to resign when John Paul II was still alive. Why are people surprised that an 86-year-old man would want some rest?

The Gun Control Debate

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Ban assault weapons or put armed guards in every school? Continue reading →

When I started competing in debate in 1966 I learned that there was only one way to make a prima facie case for a significant change in policy. Every affirmative case began by portraying a compelling need that inhered in the present system. Inherency in this instance meant that the problem could not be addressed by tinkering with the system. The solution required a structural change. The second step was to provide a plan that solved the problem. This approach was based on a concept of burden of proof widely attributed to Richard Whately, an early nineteenth century Archbishop of Dublin in the Church of Ireland.

This line of reasoning has commonly been heard since the massacre of the children at Sandy Hook school. No one publicly denies that the need is compelling; after all, everyone cringes at the sight of blood-spattered youngsters. Those arguing in favor of gun control have asserted that the widespread availability of certain types of weapons systems make this kind of crime possible, and they should therefore be banned. The other side has argued that the only way to prevent these assaults is to increase security in all schools by hiring guards who, presumably, will be able to match the assailant in accuracy and firepower. “It takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun.”

In the fifteen years in which I was involved in debate I heard many cases concerning gun control, but I never heard anyone propose either of the above plans. In the first place, of course, frustrated young (wait — the latest guy holed up in a survivalist bunker in Alabama is older than I am!) men in those days were not in the habit of taking semi-automatic weapons into public gatherings for the purpose of blowing people away. So, the compelling need was not at all evident.

The gun control plan that several debate teams did propose was the banning of handguns, which were generally defined as firearms with barrels of a limited length, less than a foot or so. These weapons were then and are now used in the vast majority of murders. No one would claim that eliminating them (if that were possible) would prevent all of those murders; some murderers would doubtless choose a different weapon. On the other hand the murder rates in countries that are otherwise comparable to the U.S. are so much lower that it is difficult to argue that there would not be a significant reduction in the total number of homicides. The psychology behind firing a gun, which is a rather obvious phallic symbol, is quite different from the psychology of stabbing or poisoning.

In all of those debates I only heard two cogent argument against the banning of handguns. The first was the claim that widespread gun ownership deters crime. The studies that support this notion are controversial, to say the least. Furthermore, even if the concept is plausible, the guns evidently do a very poor job of deterring murders, which have a permanence not associated with property crimes.

The second argument, which is much more prevalent now than it was at that time, was that we need an armed populace as an assurance against the government getting out of control. This argument is easier to ridicule than it is to refute. It clearly is the reason that the second amendment is in the constitution in the first place, and even if a fascistic or “Mad Max” scenario seems outlandish now, neither is inconceivable. Those supporting a ban on handguns, however, had little difficulty with this argument since a person armed only with a handgun would not pose much of a threat to heavily armed storm troopers or to Mel Gibson.

In a majority of the cases there is a common goal to which everyone is accountable and that policies, practices, and resources are aligned with the goal. Archbishop Whately’s approach began to lose favor in the world of competitive debate in the seventies. Instead, the concepts of systems theory began to be applied to policy considerations. The reasoning was this: “If one system were clearly superior to another, why not adopt it even if the new system does not solve a compelling and inherent problem?”

A ban on handguns (once again assuming that such a notion were practicable) would almost certainly lead to the advantage of fewer murders and suicides, and it is very difficult to imagine disadvantages that would come close to outweighing this benefit. Therefore, an attractive debate case can easily be made.

The same cannot be said of either of the current proposals. The assault weapons ban might prevent an incident like Sandy Hook, but the number of people killed by these weapons in the U.S. is still quite low by any standard. Some of those murderers might well be able to obtain an equally lethal way to accomplish their nefarious purpose. It could also be argued that assault weapons might be useful if the government runs amok. The difficulty of proving the likelihood of such an event could be offset by the importance of maintaining a free and civil society.

The best argument against the placing of armed guards in the schools is the cost. There are over 140,000 schools in the United States, and many of those have more than one building that would need guarding. Furthermore, there is not a scintilla of evidence that deployment of these guards would reduce the number of dead children. Introducing so many guns in schools would inevitably lead to their accidental or purposeful firing. Even if they did deter an assailant from shooting up a school, there are many other places where children congregate. Are we going to station armed guards at every soccer field, movie theater, and amusement park ride? Uh oh, I may have just given Wayne LaPierre an idea.

This last proposal reminds me of the government’s reaction to the 9/11 attacks. A handful of jihadists figured out that airport security was incredibly lax in the U.S. and that onboard security was essentially nonexistent. They had no difficulty hijacking four planes and used them to kill 3,000 people. The federal government responded by creating the gigantic Transportation Security Administration, which was apparently mandated to serve as such a visible annoyance that people would not be worried about another hijacking. Surely no one could argue that all of these labor-intensive airport security procedures are worth the money and effort. The agency’s budget is over $8 billion per year! If each passenger wastes fifteen minutes being screened, and their time is valued at $10 per hour, that is another $2 billion lost. If you think that this much spending might be necessary to prevent another terrorist event, then why have there been no attacks on the poorly screened methods of transportation — trains, subways, and ships? No sensible debate team would have ever proposed such a stupid approach to an easily soluble (by locking the cockpit doors on airlines) problem.

In my opinion we would be a lot better off if political decision-makers and pundits thought like debaters, but I am not naive enough to think that it will ever happen.