Call No Man Father

by William X. Kienzle

  “And the change in his name is your strongest argument,” Hanson interrupted.

  “One of them,” Selner stated affably. “It happened when Jesus singled out Simon and told him that henceforth he would be known as ‘the Rock’—Petrus in Latin, Cephas in Aramaic—the language they spoke. The pun was perfect in Aramaic. ‘You are Cephas,’ Jesus said, ‘and upon this Cephas I will build my Church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ The keys of the kingdom! What more clear statement could the Lord make!”

  In his mind’s eye, Koesler could see the huge inscription on the inside of the dome in St. Peter’s Basilica: “claves regni coelorum.” The keys of the kingdom of heaven.

  “All well and good,” Hanson responded, “if Jesus actually said it.”

  “Really, that is unworthy of you, Dan. If you can’t refute a statement, you claim it never happened.”

  “Not so. And not so cavalierly. You know as well as I that textual criticism compares exhaustively all of the so-called quotes of Jesus. Some are accepted by nearly all scholars. Others … not.

  “When you read on,” Hanson continued, “Peter’s place in the early Church is pretty plainly spelled out. He was indisputably first—but first among equals. But infallible? Hardly. Remember the confrontation at Antioch. It had to do with Jewish dietary laws—which were and, for the most part, still are extremely strict.

  “Peter was guided by a vision to cut through these laws. All of the earliest Christians were Jews, of course. But the new faith was to be open to all.

  “However, Peter was waffling. When he ate with the Gentiles it was as if there were no dietary laws. With the Jews he ate kosher.

  “Then came the confrontation at Antioch, when, as Paul tells it, ‘I directly withstood him because he clearly was in the wrong.’

  “Peter and Paul in Antioch is one of the reasons scholars and critics doubt the ‘keys’ statement. First among equals, as I’ve said; but infallible …?”

  Selner began to pace in a small rectangular perimeter, as if he were in a tiny cell. “Peter in Antioch was on the horns of a dilemma. He knew Jewish law would have to be reconsidered in most if not all ways. He was with Gentiles in Antioch and had no reservation about eating with them. Then the Jewish Christians came to town. If he suddenly insisted on Jewish law, the Gentiles would have been confused at best. If he continued to eat with the Gentiles, the Jews would be scandalized.

  “He decided in favor of tact and diplomacy. Paul thought that was a bad call and that Peter was ‘in the wrong.’ But it was not a doctrinal matter. It involved little more than good or bad manners.”

  “Bravo, John,” Hanson said. “You’ve refined that argument since our last go-round. But and however … the word ‘infallible’ hasn’t yet been mentioned by anybody. There’s when I begin looking around in history for the first mention of the concept.

  “And I don’t find it until about 1300—the beginning of the fourteenth century! And then the idea was to confine the pope’s powers, not to broaden them.

  “You know”—he turned toward Koesler since Selner was basically familiar with the argument—“religious orders, such as Franciscans and Dominicans, routinely take vows—usually three: poverty, chastity, and obedience. You’d think their meaning would be obvious. But, in practice, they mean what the religious order says they mean. And this is particularly true of ‘poverty’

  “Now, in about 1300, Pope Gregory IX declared that poverty as practiced by the Franciscan order meant giving up all worldly goods ‘singly and in common.’ In other words, Franciscans were not only to own nothing, they were to live dirt-poor as did their founder, Francis of Assisi.

  “Now, enter an otherwise unknown Franciscan monk, Pietro Olivi. He couldn’t have agreed more with Pope Gregory. But he was fearful that some future pope would come along to undo this evangelical poverty. So he came up with in effect the concept of infallibility.

  “Originally, the infallibility invented by Olivi gave no ‘sovereignty’ to popes. Instead, it severely limited them to everything taught by all preceding popes.

  “For instance, if Pope Gregory’s teaching on the total poverty of the Franciscans were infallible—guaranteed by God to be free from error—then should any future pope attempt to water down the doctrine, such pope would ipso facto disqualify himself from the papacy. He would be a false pope since he denied a previous pope’s infallible statement. So, Franciscans would live dirt poor forever and ever. And Olivi would be happy and at peace forever and ever.

  “Naturally, the popes of that time would not permit themselves to be restricted by everything ever taught by all their predecessors. In fact, Gregory’s successors, Nicolas III and John XXII, condemned the doctrine. And nearly all the early defenders of that doctrine were declared heretics.

  “So that’s it. Not only was infallibility unheard-of, not even dreamed of, by the early Church, it was invented at the beginning of the fourteenth century by a monk who wanted to make sure his order would live as poor as its founder, Francis of Assisi, until the end of the world.”

  “Nice,” Selner said, “but I would change ‘unheard-of’ to ‘taken for granted.’”

  “His ‘argument from silence,’” Hanson said to Koesler.

  “And valid,” Selner rejoined. “Take the Eucharist—the Mass. The Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, when they tell of the Last Supper, each quotes Jesus, ‘This is my body. This is my blood.’ These words are the basis for our belief in the changing of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Yet though John’s Gospel treats the Last Supper in great detail it makes no mention of the transubstantiation of bread and wine.

  “Now some have argued that since John omits these vital words they were never said. But the concept of what the Synoptics record-would be incomprehensible without John’s sixth chapter wherein Jesus promises and explains the Eucharist.

  “The simple explanation is that by the time John wrote his Gospel the Eucharist was familiar to all Christians.

  “And simply, that’s what happened to the doctrine of infallibility: The concept that Jesus taught through Peter and his successors was a given. The Church from its earliest times simply took the doctrine as a fact.

  “Granted, it had to develop over the years, just as did every other Christian doctrine. It had its ups and downs until it was specifically defined by the First Vatican Council back in 1870.”

  “Well,” Hanson said, “half defined.”

  “All right,” Selner conceded, “infallibility was to proceed from a consensus of bishops and laity. It wasn’t any of their fault that war forced the bishops to leave Rome before the role of bishops and laity could be defined. But that was corrected in Vatican II.”

  “John”—Hanson’s tone was impatient—“for the past century or so, Cardinals become popes and Cardinals are made from bishops. And the prime qualification for the office of bishop is loyalty—as blind a loyalty as can be imagined—to the Holy See. How difficult can it be to reach a consensus from a bunch of clones armed only with rubber stamps?”

  “You exaggerate!”

  “A little. But I think the word we’re looking for here is indefectibility —that no matter how many mistakes and blunders we make, somehow, by the intervention of the Holy Spirit, we will muddle through till the end of the world.”

  “But … uh …” Koesler, who felt like a spectator at a verbal Wimbledon, hesitated to interrupt, but the two men seemed to welcome his question. “… how did we get from that Franciscan monk to here?”

  “How?” Hanson leaped in. “Simple: Infallibility became a handy tool that popes used against Gallicanism and the Protestant Reformation. And finally it became like the atom bomb: The mere threat of it became a powerful weapon popes could use to get their way. And they have been very clever in hardly ever using it.

  “Frankly,
you have to suspend logical thought to agree with the present interpretation of infallibility. But with this as an extraordinary teaching tool that is scarcely if ever used, they have created the ‘ordinary’ magisterium. And the ‘ordinary’ teaching office of the Church is so closely related to the ‘extraordinary’ that to deny something ‘ordinarily’ defined is to be, simply, wrong.

  “What a marvelous weapon! How we got from there to here is that we have discovered a device so powerful we just can’t lay it aside. It’s more intoxicating than the possession of atomic power. The last few popes, with the exception of John XXIII, have been threatening to ‘infallibilize’ just about anything that’s near and dear to their hearts.

  “And”—he turned back to Father Selner, who was obviously eager to get his licks in—“let me tell you this, John: If this pope comes in here to raise Humanae Vitae to an infallible level, you can cross the ‘One’ out of ‘One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.’”

  Hanson, with a smile, turned back to Koesler. “As for me, I say, with the late John Henry Cardinal Newman, ‘I will drink to infallibility. But first, I will drink to conscience.’”

  “Dan,” Selner said in all seriousness, “I think you’ve gone—”

  A surge of sound brought further discussion to a sudden end. The ruckus seemed to be coming from the corridor. Neither of the doors to this room was closed, so the noise could be heard quite clearly, though not intelligibly.

  “What the hell is that?!” Hanson exclaimed.

  No one bothered answering because no one knew. But they all hastened to the doors and out into the hallway.

  There they found two men, one casually dressed, the other in shirt, tie, and jacket, shouting at each other. Push was rapidly coming to shove.

  Two guards were trying, not very effectively, to separate them.

  Finally, two police officers, a male and a female, both black, got between the combatants. No blood had yet been spilled, and the officers seemed determined that the altercation not exceed verbal abuse.

  But there had been enough commotion to cause a general emptying of the various conference rooms into the hall.

  Hanson slipped over to one of the security guards, who was visibly relieved that real police officers had taken charge. “What was that about?”

  “Damned if I know,” the guard replied.

  Letting Hanson lead the way, Koesler and Selner listened in.

  “Did it start out here in the hallway?” Hanson asked.

  “No, not here. In that room over there …” The guard indicated a conference room directly in front of them.

  Hanson squinted to read the small sign posted on the wall next to the door. It read: FAMILY PLANNING: A MORAL PERSPECTIVE.

  “Wouldn’t you know it?” Hanson shook his head. “One more war fought over morality. Let’s see what the damage is.”

  19

  The three priests entered the conference room.

  To Koesler it seemed a duplicate of the one he’d just left. The dais with its three chairs, the lectern, the mike and speakers, the floral decorations, the folding chairs.

  The difference was that several of the metal folding chairs were overturned or scattered helter-skelter across the room. Koesler wondered whether any of the chairs had been thrown or if they’d just been stumbled over and toppled. He recalled the memorable photos of Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight hurling a folding chair across the floor. That could hurt.

  The three priests still standing at the dais, apparently the participants of this conference, seemed dumbfounded. A police officer was questioning them.

  Another priest was coming toward Koesler. For a moment he could not place the man.

  It was Father Paul Smith, who had been at the Koznickis’ last night. Why hadn’t he recognized Smith immediately?

  The problem was that Koesler had not expected to see him here. It must have been that Smith had plainly said that he planned on being merely a spectator at this whole affair.

  Of course spectators could attend these rehearsals. But Koesler had assumed that a merely casual observer might limit attendance to main events.

  Father Smith looked pale. Of course that could be due to the muted, indirect lighting that gave the room a grayish tint. But, now that he thought about it, Koesler had noticed the same pallor last night.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here, Paul. Are you feeling okay?”

  Smith frowned. “It’s nothing. Just Michigan’s winter crud. It gets to you earlier the older you get.”

  “Don’t I know.” Koesler introduced Smith to Hanson and Selner, identifying everyone comprehensively.

  “How did this mess get started, Paul?” Koesler asked.

  “The pot was simmering for quite a while,” Smith replied. “I believe it was brought to a boil by that gentleman right there, talking to Monsignor Martin. Do you know him?”

  Koesler gazed at the man dressed in Salvation Army discards, He was busily taking notes. It was the notepad that gave him away.

  “‘Less I miss my guess, he’s a reporter … for the Free Press, I think Name is Cox or Box or something like that. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen him. How did it start?”

  “Well … first, do you know these three guys—the ones who are giving this conference?”

  Selner and Hanson said their paths had occasionally crossed with those of the two speakers. They were unfamiliar with the moderator. Koesler, on the other hand, knew the moderator but not the presenters.

  “The moderator,” Smith explained, “is Monsignor Martin, a pastor here in Detroit. The shorter of the other two is Norb Rasmussen. From Milwaukee. Teaches at Tübingen in Germany. The tall one is Bill Palmer. Belongs to Boston, but teaches at the North American Seminary in Rome.”

  Rasmussen was built squarely, somewhat like a smaller version of a sumo wrestler, Koesler thought. His hair was in a brush cut, in itself a statement. Palmer seemed quite tall, but that may have been due to the contrast in height with Rasmussen. Palmer’s elongated head probably was bald. His thin white hair seemed combed from the side over his pate. In wire-rimmed glasses he looked every inch the scholar.

  Koesler wondered briefly at the casting for this conference. The personnel of the two panels he had seen so far mirrored each other to a striking degree. One short and stocky, the other tall and thin. He’d have to check out the other panels as this program moved forward.

  “Actually,” Smith said, “I intended to try to attend your rehearsal, Bob, but you weren’t there and you weren’t there … did something happen?”

  “Later.” Koesler didn’t want to get into that, especially since it was old news to the other two priests in this foursome.

  “Anyway, that’s why I was a trifle late for this conference. It was already under way when I got here. But I doubt that I missed much. On the matter of family planning we had one conservative and one liberal. You two,” Smith indicated Koesler’s companions, “already know these two presenters. Let’s see if Bob can sort them out.”

  Koesler smiled. “Too easy. If Father Palmer teaches in Rome, he’s apt to be on the conservative side. Otherwise he’d be courting martyrdom. That leaves Father Rasmussen a liberal. Otherwise Tübingen would have introduced him to Hans Küng.”

  “Congratulations,” Smith said. “Really, all they seemed to be doing was rehashing Humanae Vitae. It was getting quite tedious. There’s a limit to how many ways there are of stating that every act of intercourse must be between the validly married and must be open to the production of new life. I must say that Father Palmer was rather inventive in finding a whole bunch of duplicate statements. And he had quite a few popes who agreed with his views. Not a bad bench.”

  “So?” Koesler prodded.

  “So?” Smith responded.

  “So how did this turn into a donnybrook?”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, a couple of men seated in the audience began asking the panelists questions. At first they were unwilling to take questions. But after a short wh
ile—when it became obvious that those two weren’t going to desist—the speakers began trying to address the questions. Then, the two gentlemen began pretty much talking to each other.

  “The main problem seemed to turn on natural family planning.

  “Palmer and one of the gentlemen argued that natural family planning—or NFP, as Palmer called it—was more effective than any other form of birth control, including all the devices and methods condemned by official Church teaching.

  “Rasmussen and his constituent made the point that maybe NFP was, indeed, better and more effective than the rest of it. But that wasn’t the point. The point—or at least Rasmussen’s argument—was that the only moral decision that had to be made was whether a married couple should try to have a baby. If they decided, for whatever reason really, that they should not have a child, the moral decision was made. After that, any form of birth control was all right, including NFP.”

  “What I’m interested in,” said Selner, “is how all these people got in here. I was under the impression that security would be tight.”

  “I didn’t have any trouble getting in at all,” Smith said. “There is a security station just inside the doors. You fellas must have had to go through it to get in this morning.”

  “But we had to show our credentials,” Selner protested.

  “I don’t think so,” Smith said. “I mean I don’t think you had to show them. I just showed the guard my driver’s license … come to think of it, he didn’t ask for any identification. Of course, I am wearing clericals.”

  “Anybody can buy clericals,” Selner protested. “I want to know where this promised security is!”

  “We are, as they say in Washington, outside the loop,” said Koesler, remembering last evening’s conversation with Koznicki and Tully. “The real security kicks in when the pope gets here. And even then the bulk of security is going to be aimed at protecting him and those closest to him. We’ll still be little fish.”