Has the Pope become a figurehead?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Young_Thinker
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Y

Young_Thinker

Guest
Hello everyone. I was wondering if, other than things like appointments and proclamations, does the Pope really exercise any of his God-given authority authority anymore. His Holiness seems to delegate everything, so that it seems to be managed by the Cardinal-Secretary of State(who is not even a foreign minister, like I had previously thought, but instead a sort of prime minister) or the President of the Vatican Commission(who exercises executive and legislative authority). For one thing, considering that the Vatican City is so small, why does even need a “mayor” other than the Pope? I know that the Pope is often an old man, but so are those under him. I just do not understand this(Pius XI and Pius XII even had a Governor of the Vatican City and a Vatican Commission). Is it just to keep favored prelates employed(or, rather, from retiring too early)? I would appreciate any thought upon this.
 
Young_Thinker said:
Hello everyone. I was wondering if, other than things like appointments and proclamations, does the Pope really exercise any of his God-given authority authority anymore. His Holiness seems to delegate everything, so that it seems to be managed by the Cardinal-Secretary of State(who is not even a foreign minister, like I had previously thought, but instead a sort of prime minister) or the President of the Vatican Commission(who exercises executive and legislative authority). For one thing, considering that the Vatican City is so small, why does even need a “mayor” other than the Pope? I know that the Pope is often an old man, but so are those under him. I just do not understand this(Pius XI and Pius XII even had a Governor of the Vatican City and a Vatican Commission). Is it just to keep favored prelates employed(or, rather, from retiring too early)? I would appreciate any thought upon this.
Click to expand...
You’re kidding, right?
 
Young_Thinker said:
Hello everyone. I was wondering if, other than things like appointments and proclamations, does the Pope really exercise any of his God-given authority authority anymore. His Holiness seems to delegate everything, so that it seems to be managed by the Cardinal-Secretary of State(who is not even a foreign minister, like I had previously thought, but instead a sort of prime minister) or the President of the Vatican Commission(who exercises executive and legislative authority). For one thing, considering that the Vatican City is so small, why does even need a “mayor” other than the Pope? I know that the Pope is often an old man, but so are those under him. I just do not understand this(Pius XI and Pius XII even had a Governor of the Vatican City and a Vatican Commission). Is it just to keep favored prelates employed(or, rather, from retiring too early)? I would appreciate any thought upon this.
Click to expand...
You are thinking in political terms, and that is not quite appropriate. The pope is the bishops of Rome, and in just that guise a lot busier than you seem to realize. His schedule is a full as the President’s, and Obama, who seems to give a speech every day, is not much busier than this old man in his 80s. He is also the pope of course, and in touch with the whole world. Remotely he is the head of a body of a billion people, more than any other leader except maybe the premier of China. There are more than 400,000 bishops. priests, nuns. How could he not delegate? But the bishops are not his delegates. They are in many ways his peers, even the auxiliaries, and the heads of dioceses “run” their sees independently of the Vatican.
 
RobbyS said:
You are thinking in political terms, and that is not quite appropriate. The pope is the bishops of Rome, and in just that guise a lot busier than you seem to realize. His schedule is a full as the President’s, and Obama, who seems to give a speech every day, is not much busier than this old man in his 80s. He is also the pope of course, and in touch with the whole world. Remotely he is the head of a body of a billion people, more than any other leader except maybe the premier of China. There are more than 400,000 bishops. priests, nuns. How could he not delegate? But the bishops are not his delegates. They are in many ways his peers, even the auxiliaries, and the heads of dioceses “run” their sees independently of the Vatican.
Click to expand...
Still, though, why the need for so many ministers of states. and why does the Cardinal Secretary seem to have so much to say(with his power being most recently augmented by Paul VI and, to an extent, by John Paul II)? Also, these Vatican officials appear to often hold multiple offices(e.g. Cardinal Bertone is Cardinal Secretary, Carmelengo, the president of at least one commission, and apparently a Cardinal-Bishop).
 
What about in the past when the Pope was less well-traveled(the concept of public relations did not really exist at that time, and nor did U.S. presidents) yet ruled a much larger territory and was more politically involved? And Cardinal Wolseley was Archbishop of York and Lord High Chancellor(certainly not an empty position- though I do not about know about now with the Blair-Gordonian Euro-Americanesque “reforms,” which the Queen signed as a thoughtless rubber-stamp).
 
Young_Thinker said:
Still, though, why the need for so many ministers of states. and why does the Cardinal Secretary seem to have so much to say(with his power being most recently augmented by Paul VI and, to an extent, by John Paul II)? Also, these Vatican officials appear to often hold multiple offices(e.g. Cardinal Bertone is Cardinal Secretary, Carmelengo, the president of at least one commission, and apparently a Cardinal-Bishop).
Click to expand...
The Vatican is a relatively small number of men trying to get a handle on the concerns and affairs of almost a billion people. But it is not a government. Bertone is Benedict’s right hand man, in part because he has the administrative gifts that Benedict does not have. He has to have the titles to act as, more or less, the VG. Benedict is a scholar by trade and disposition. Through experience he is aware of the problems and is trying to fix them. knowing that a considerable number of men even in the Vatican theologically have more in common with Hans Kueng than himself, that some prelates are “progressives,” in that they have more hopes in politics than in religion.
 
Every Pope has the power to decide how much temporal power he’s going to use, and how much religious and teaching power he’s going to use. In general, it’s been proved by hard experience that things work better with a light hand on the reins. (Catholics are stubborn.)

If civilization is collapsing, as it did in late antiquity, then yeah, the Pope is going to want a little more scope for temporal power. (Pope Gregory the Great wasn’t planning on become the government of the City of Rome. But the civilians and senatorial families didn’t step up.)

As for using his infallibility? Well, that’s something that popes also have to decide for themselves. It’s not going to come up very often; and it seems to be unhealthy for a pope to want to go infallible on something unnecessary.

As for the Vatican bureaucracy, it’s supposed to do most of the work for the Pope. Not much other reason to have it around. Delegation is a wonderful thing. Since it’s been around continuously since antiquity, it’s not likely to go away.

If you want to understand the shifting roles of the papacy and the many ways things can go wrong or right, I suggest reading some histories of the popes. EWTN has a podcast of a 12 part series on this topic, which should either satisfy your curiosity or give you some ideas on where to look further.
 
Some of you guys seem to think the original post was comically off the mark in that he’s not akin to a political head or CEO of the RCC.

From an outsiders view, this is exactly how I thought of him. I’m fairly certain that view is common (whether or not its accurate) both within and without the church. I came across an article where various corporate leaders were giving their commentary on what the Pope needs to do to be a good leader in this situation. They all approached it from the perspective of running a company. I heard on Catholic radio this evening some guy vigorously trying to correct this idea that the pope was “in charge.”

Again, from an outsiders view I’m pretty stunned as this is exactly what I thought you guys believed.
 
RobbyS said:
The Vatican is a relatively small number of men trying to get a handle on the concerns and affairs of almost a billion people. But it is not a government. Bertone is Benedict’s right hand man, in part because he has the administrative gifts that Benedict does not have. He has to have the titles to act as, more or less, the VG. Benedict is a scholar by trade and disposition. Through experience he is aware of the problems and is trying to fix them. knowing that a considerable number of men even in the Vatican theologically have more in common with Hans Kueng than himself, that some prelates are “progressives,” in that they have more hopes in politics than in religion.
Click to expand...
All right.
 
Mintaka said:
Every Pope has the power to decide how much temporal power he’s going to use, and how much religious and teaching power he’s going to use. In general, it’s been proved by hard experience that things work better with a light hand on the reins. (Catholics are stubborn.)

If civilization is collapsing, as it did in late antiquity, then yeah, the Pope is going to want a little more scope for temporal power. (Pope Gregory the Great wasn’t planning on become the government of the City of Rome. But the civilians and senatorial families didn’t step up.)

As for using his infallibility? Well, that’s something that popes also have to decide for themselves. It’s not going to come up very often; and it seems to be unhealthy for a pope to want to go infallible on something unnecessary.

As for the Vatican bureaucracy, it’s supposed to do most of the work for the Pope. Not much other reason to have it around. Delegation is a wonderful thing. Since it’s been around continuously since antiquity, it’s not likely to go away.

If you want to understand the shifting roles of the papacy and the many ways things can go wrong or right, I suggest reading some histories of the popes. EWTN has a podcast of a 12 part series on this topic, which should either satisfy your curiosity or give you some ideas on where to look further.
Click to expand...
Thank you; I intend to read Nicolas Cheetham’s book The Keeper of the Keys. It sounds interesting and should be quite informative.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top